


all of these thousand miles

by hippolytas



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Marvel 616, Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Civil War II, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8620432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippolytas/pseuds/hippolytas
Summary: One year after the Fantastic Four have disappeared: where are they now? 
No one really has a clue, and Johnny seems to be the only one still searching for answers.  When the universe (or someone with control over it) starts sending him signals, Johnny decides that it's time to go looking.  Peter's just coming along to make sure he survives the experience.  It all goes about as well as can be expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SpideyTorch Big Bang over on [tumblr](http://spideytorchbigbang.tumblr.com/). It is not even a little bit close to the Ella Enchanted AU I originally intended to write but, c'est la vie. The fic deals with the fallout from [Secret Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Wars_\(2015_comic_book\)#Plot) and the ongoing absence of the Fantastic Four/Future Foundation from the Marvel Universe at large and goes AU right before the recent Civil War II event. Thanks to the mods for organizing!!
> 
> I know that Secret Wars technically did away with the 616 universe but I don't really care. Prime Earth is dumb and Tom Brevoort can fight me if he wants. 
> 
> Future Foundation characters are [here!](http://i.imgur.com/SPnP8QQ.png)
> 
> Gorgeous artwork is by [sciderman](http://sciderman.tumblr.com/) (ETA - if you're having issues with the embedded art, there's a post [here](http://sciderman.tumblr.com/post/153536413722/all-of-these-thousand-miles-hippolytas) on tumblr)

For Valeria's 5th birthday, Johnny gets her a stuffed mouse and a Douglas Adams box set.  It’s kind of (okay, completely) an accident that Johnny is in a bookstore. The squad had been chasing down some stragglers from a botched AIM raid and had followed them into the Barnes & Nobles at Union Square, where Johnny had immediately proceeded to light a display of James Patterson novels on fire. He’s vainly searching for this year’s Johnny Storm calendar and keeping a wary eye on the argument Cap is now having with the store manager when the sci-fi display catches his eye. 

He doesn’t think of it as being a particularly optimistic purchase at the time. Johnny loves giving gifts. He’ll probably buy her ten more things before the day arrives and Sue will make him return half of them. And Val’s birthday is months away.

Of course they’ll be back by then.

Val, the Future Foundation, Johnny’s whole _life_ – they’re not going to be gone forever.

Valeria’s fifth birthday rolls around like clockwork though and she’s still not home. The Future Foundation has been missing in action for the better part of a year now. He pulls the presents out from where they’ve been gathering dust under his bed and in a fit of stubbornness, wraps them.

He ends up on the roof of the Baxter Building, sitting on the edge and staring blankly out of the city.

“Mind telling me why a terrified receptionist just crashed my board meeting in a panic about some suicidal blond on the roof?” 

Johnny doesn’t turn around. “Hey Pete.”

“Hi Johnny.” Peter waits. “So?”

Johnny pulls his leg up a little so that he can turn. He tosses the wrapped present at Peter, who catches it easily.

“Oh.” He exhales. “Val.”

“Yeah,” says Johnny. It’s too much to express all of the hope and fear and disappointment wrapped neatly up in the box in Peter’s hands, so he doesn’t say anything else, just stares back out at the sinking sun.

“Hey.” Peter holds a hand out to help him up. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Johnny stands and follows, grumbling. “It’s not another statue, is it?”

Peter just rolls his eyes. They walk down to his apartment. Johnny waits impatiently as he roots around some drawers for a few minutes. Finally, he straightens, finding what he’s looking for.

It’s a box, like Johnny’s. Although he’s pretty sure that it’s been wrapped with webbing and the kind of foil they use for shock blankets, because even rich Peter Parker is a bit of a disaster.

“I thought about it last week,” he admits. “It seemed like it would be like giving up, not to.”

Johnny nods. He hands the gift back to Peter. “Doctor Strange has been making noises about a possible lead,” he says. “It’s hard to keep getting my hopes up.” The last few leads had gone exactly nowhere.

“You should take somebody with you,” Peter suggests. “You know. Someone who gets it.”

Johnny perks up, getting an idea. “Or I could invite him here. I can see who’s around from the extended FF! We’ll make it a party,” he says, ignoring Peter’s sputtering.

Bad taste isn't the half of it, but Johnny’s never let that stop him before.  In retrospect, sure, it should have been obvious that it was all going to end badly.

 

* * *

 

"What's with the books?" Peter asks, gently ribbing, as they wait in the atrium for people to arrive.  Peter's got his mask rolled up so that he can eat the hotdog he bought for two bucks from the vendor who hangs around the front of the building.  Being rich doesn't seem to have given him better taste in food. He spends at least five minutes complaining that the hot dog guy is basically committing highway robbery and then scarfs the whole thing down in thirty seconds flat.

The Baxter Building is totally quiet. Maybe it’s a holiday or maybe Peter gave everyone the day off, he’s not really sure. The lack of ambient noise makes every sound they make echo around the atrium in a way that Johnny finds unsettling. Maybe he’s just never heard the place so silent.

Alicia's giant sculpture looms over them.

Peter squints at him.  "Look, Torch, I know this is a pot calling the flaming kettle hot kind of situation here, but you have got to unclench. 

"I couldn't get ahold of Ben," Johnny reminds him tersely.  "Strange has barely told me anything. What if it doesn't pan out?"

"Then we try again."  Peter puts his hands on either side of Johnny's shoulders.  "We’ve got some time, here.” Something between them beeps, setting off a trilling echo around the room.

“Hang on, I gotta take this.” Peter steps away to start a heated exchange about ‘the Chennai rollout’ and Johnny devotes the next several minutes to wondering where in his spandex he could possibly hide that cell phone.

“Naidu can handle it…oh, wow, give her my congratulations…no, Anna Maria’s in Shanghai. And it’s Harry’s weekend with the kids. 

There’s a pause. His head tilts almost imperceptibly towards Johnny.

“I really can’t…I’ve got something going on here…look, I can be out there in 48 hours, but the world’s not going to end if this waits until Monday.”

He hangs up. “And I would know about world-ending,” he sighs to the empty atrium.

Johnny doesn’t ask him about the call. He doesn’t really want to know what important company crisis Peter is blowing off to be here for him. "Last chance to ditch the costume and wear your civvies like a normal person. I know how much you hate the taste of Lycra when you’re eating finger food."

"Right, like that wasn't the reason you bought the shrimp over the little cheese things on toothpicks. I saw that you expensed those to the Baxter Building by the way."

Johnny snorts, despite himself. "How dare you. Valeria loved those -" as he says it, he knows the word is wrong and his mouth goes dry. The rest of the sentence sticks in his throat as all of his fear rises up at once --

The reality is this: no one has seen or heard from the Future Foundation since the universe almost ended and Johnny dreads news of them as much as he longs for it.  He constructs a hundred possible scenarios in his head every day about what might have happened and where they could have gone and dismisses them all by dinner.  He's a smart enough guy to know that he's not the guy who is smart enough to solve this problem and his dreams are full of falling and letting go and timelines where he jumps away from Peter too late and Val is evaporated and the Annihilation Wave overpowers him and lays waste to everything he has ever loved. He wakes up and it's too quiet. Ben’s gone, but Johnny will stay here on Earth waiting for his family to come back until he’s used up all of his hope and even then --

"Woah there, hot stuff. Breathe for me, Storm."  Peter has yanked up the mask and his pale face is swimming in front of him, only inches away from his own. "It's okay, man. I know what you meant."

Johnny nods, or tries to. Peter keeps his hand on his shoulder, firmly gripping the dip between his neck and his shoulder blade. Johnny focuses on the uneven stitches under his eye where he had ripped his mask in a fight with a mutant aardvark earlier in the week. Even with all of his shiny new money, Peter insists on repairing his suits by hand and wearing them again.

"Okay," Peter says, rubbing his thumb in a slow circle over Johnny's collarbone, "Why don't you tell me about these books? No offense, but you're usually not a guy big on the written word."

Johnny opens his mouth to argue.  "Or at least words that come in over 140 characters."

 He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t lean away from Peter’s touch.  "Mom read them to me and Sue,” he says quietly.  “I was too young to remember a lot of stuff about her, but I remember that. Right before...everything, Ben and I were taking turns reading them to Franklin, before he went to bed.  Val and some of the other kids started listening in, but she missed the first couple books while she was. Um."

“Palling around with our favorite dictator?” Peter suggests. He picks up the package in his free hand and tosses it up a few inches in the air, evaluating the heft.  "Can't Valeria just read all of these in like...a day?"

"Reading ahead is against the rules of storytime," Johnny informs him. "Strictly enforced, forty lashes with a wet noodles and banishment for a week. Serious business.”

“I never pegged you, Jonathan Storm, as the bedtime story police,” Peter says, voice light and mocking.

Before Johnny can respond, with an ill-advised and terrible joke about how Peter has never pegged him at all, another voice comes from the doorway.  "Hello." 

They turn in unison. Peter’s mask is already back on.  Julie Power waves cheerfully at them. Next to her, Katie’s arms are crossed. She looks warier than her sister.

“Hey guys. No Jack?”

Julie shakes her head. “He’s not feeling up to it today. Our parents stayed behind to talk to him. Doctor Strange makes them nervous.”

"Neat statue,” Katie says, staring up at stone Franklin.

“Yeah,” Johnny tells her, not knowing what to say.

Julie turns to Spider-Man. “Do you know if Peter Parker is here today?”

Peter coughs. "Nope. No, he, uh, had a meeting. Meetings. Very important meetings, all day. And a toothache.”

“Oh,” says Julie, faintly disappointed. “Alex thinks that Parker Industries work in cellular reconstruction has a lot of potential. He was really excited about it, before, well, you know. I wanted to mention it.”

“I’ll pass the message along,” promises Peter. 

“We should head upstairs,” says Johnny. “Strange doesn’t usually bother with the door.”

They all gather in the living room of Peter's apartment suite. A few others trickle in as they wait, mostly friends and former members of the FF.  Jen and Scott are arguing about some current events thing. Cassie's there too, hitting it off with Julie. Medusa and Crystal are off on an Inhuman mission, but Ahura, Luna, and Lockjaw show up.  Ahura is pointedly not speaking to him, which Johnny figures is, okay, fair enough.

Alicia is sitting on a couch by herself.  Every time the door opens, she pauses for a millisecond.  Johnny looks up too, like the universe will defy all probability and send Ben through the door.

Jen sidles over, as well as an eight foot tall green lady can really sidle.  "Should I be worried?"

Johnny blinks.  "About what?" 

"You. This. Throwing a birthday party for your niece _in absentia_."

"Is that lawyer for missing?” Johnny can hear his voice rising but feels unable to stop it. “Because she's not a milkbox kid. Anyway, it’s not really a party. It’s an info session, but that seemed-" he waves a hand dismissively "-boring. I’ve got a reputation to uphold here."

"If you say so,” says Jen, in the neutral kind of way that Johnny knows means she thinks he’s wrong. “I’m just thinking that we shouldn’t be expecting much here."

Johnny scowls.  "You've been saying you think they're fine for months now!"

"Sure, hon," Jen says, with unusual patience, "but  _you_  haven't.  Every time someone mentions that long unexplained disappearances are not exactly unusual behavior for the FF, you jump down their throat. So here I am, advocating for the devil, to point out that you, Jonathan Spencer Storm, are behaving very erratically."

Johnny glares at her.  "Can you just...," he gestures in frustration, "... _not_ , today? Between you and Spidey, I must have had this argument a thousand times." 

She sighs and mimes zipping her lips.  "Whatever you say, Torch.  It's your party."

"It's really not," Spider-Man says, coming up behind them and leaning on Johnny.  Peter's pointy elbows dig into his sides and Johnny almost jumps out of his skin.  "Is that what he told you?"

“Ugh,” he shoulders Peter off of him and moves to the center of the room.

"Uh, hey guys." Johnny raises a hand.  His friends fall quiet.  "Thanks for coming.  I think most of you know that from what little information we've been able to gather, we think Sue and Reed and the kids are out there somewhere.  Probably not in our dimension, but, uh, it's something."  There's a nervous rush of energy running through him, making his palms buzz.  "Doctor Strange has been investigating possibilities and, uh, thinks he may have a lead, so he’s coming by to explain what he’s found. I want all of you to know whatever I know.”

Billy Kaplan bursts through the door. “Sorry I’m late!" 

"I thought Doctor Strange was coming," Peter mutters to Johnny.

"Me too," Johnny says, less quietly. “Hey, kid-”

"Spider-Man!!"  Billy Kaplan is practically vibrating.  "Mr. Storm - Mr. Torch?" he sounds it out as Johnny admirably resists the urge to facepalm.  "Strange was busy," he explains, "Emergency in an ice dimension. So here I am!"

Johnny's still not used to the way that the other faces in the room swing his way, waiting for his reaction. “Uh. You know what news he was going to give us?”

“Sure!” Billy says. “We've been working on locating the FF and we think that we've identified the dimension where we can sense two of all of them. It’s pretty far away in third and fifth dimension relative space so we haven’t been able to travel there yet, but it should be a total breeze to just – check in."  He motions with his hands for everyone to step back.

"Are you sure about this?" Julie sounds doubtful, but at least it seems to not be directed at Johnny.  She crosses her arms and frowns at Billy.  "I thought that the last time that you messed around with dimensions, you-"

"Oh-kay!" says Billy, cutting her off with a yelp.  "No need to go into all of that.  I'm not going to try to bring anybody through.”

"We can wait," Johnny offers. "Maybe the Scarlet Witch can..."

"I can do this," Billy says firmly.  He looks around. “I need something to breech the portal. Inanimate objects only.” He throws a quick glare over to Julie. “Is that for them?” He points to the presents, sitting sadly on Peter’s counter.

“Oh, that’s -” Johnny starts, then shrugs. “Sure, why not.” Happy birthday, Val. 

Billy walks around, mumbling to himself and drawing out on the floor the shape of a five-pointed star.  Finally, holding his hands out parallel to the ground, he begins to mutter and everything starts to shimmer blue. 

For a moment it seems like it's worked.  The boxes disappear and someone across the room cheers.   Billy though, has gone pale.  He lifts his eyes for a split second and his unfocused gaze meets Johnny's.

Then there's a flash of blue and Billy slumps to the floor.

 

* * *

 

Billy's dramatic bout of unconsciousness pretty much breaks the party up.

Johnny calls the Scarlet Witch, who promises to be right over.  The rest of the guests trickle out after realizing that they'll mostly be in the way.  Only Julie and Katie are still around when Wanda materializes in the middle of the room. Peter has ducked out to take another Parker Industries call away from the girls and Katie is hunched over in an armchair, eyebrows drawn and fists clenched as she stares at Billy’s prone body.

Wanda takes immediate stock of the situation. “Tell me again what happened,” she orders Johnny.

He repeats the story, trying not to forget anything. Details have always been Sue’s forte, not his.

She listens, then strides to the couch that they had laid Billy out on and starts muttering over him.  After a few minutes, she finally steps back to take a look around the room.

"What happened?" demands Julie. She's hovering near Billy's head, arms hugged around herself.

Wanda is a picture of calm, pacing around the scorch marks that remain in the floor where Billy had been working.  She draws a diagram in the air.  Sparks crackle from it, and she swipes her palm through it, hurriedly wiping it out with one hand.

"The dimension he was trying to reach," she says, finally.  "It was sealed.  He was able to break through for a moment, but the dimension closed up again almost immediately.  Some of his power must have gotten trapped on the other side. That is what has rendered him unconscious."

Johnny buries his face in his hands.  "Child Protective Services is going to run me out of town."

Wanda is expressionless as she turns back to him.  "William is eighteen now.  His choices are his own, Jonathan Storm, just as yours are." She levitates Billy with a wave of one hand. “I will discuss this with his parents.” A moment later, they’re both gone. 

Johnny slumps on the couch.

Katie rises to her tiptoes to whisper something in her sister’s ear. 

“You’re probably right,” Julie says to her, and then to Johnny and Peter: “We should head back. Let our parents and Jack know what’s going on.” 

Johnny nods.

“Sure,” Peter says. He’s reappeared in the doorway. “Be safe on your way back.”

As the girls leave, Katie’s voice floats back, “He’s like, so _old_ now.”

Peter yanks his mask off, grimacing.

"Ouch. Times are tough for a superhero who’s been around the block a few times.”

Johnny doesn’t say anything. He’s still staring at the spot where Billy had collapsed.

“Hey." Peter flops down beside Johnny and slings an arm around his shoulder. "Don't worry about getting back to New Attilan. Stay here tonight."

Johnny knocks his elbow into Peter's side.  "Didn't you destroy my bedroom for your own nefarious purposes?"

"I don't know that regular bowel movements are exactly nefarious, but-" Johnny chokes on his drink and ends up coughing quite a bit of it onto Peter's shoulder.  Now that the mask is off, his overexaggerated grimace is easy to interpret.

"Okay, gross. Invitation rescinded." 

"You can't uninvite me!" Johnny scowls, feels the heat rise, and tries to push Peter away.  "You can't even  _invite_  me.  This is my house, you ungrateful, home-stealing-" 

Peter groans loudly, interrupting him. "Not this again.  Me and my big mouth." He scrubs his hand across the back of his neck and twists his body so that he’s facing Johnny. "I was joking. Please stay?" Johnny has known Peter for long enough that he can hear the honesty bleed through his voice.

"Okay. Yeah." Thankfully his voice doesn't crack, though it's a near thing. "Yeah, I'll stay."

 

* * *

 

Peter puts him up in a guest room. The layout of the building has changed, so it takes a few minutes to identify it as Franklin's. Out of some fond habit, he checks the closet, but there's no dimensional portal, no miniature universe in there tonight.

He stares at the wall without really realizing what he's doing and wonders where they went. All the little worlds that his crazy powerful nephew has created over the years, weird and wild, just like everything else that the FF does.  He slumps against the doorjamb, slides to the floor, feeling numb.  

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to remember what the last few months have looked like.  Long hard days with the Unity Squad, then Inhuman business, then spending what little time was left doing whatever he could to not sleep.

It’s better and worse, being here in the Baxter Building.  Better, because here, it feels real.  The Fantastic Four have existed here, in a way that is much more tangible than the outside world, where even the blue '4' shirts that had once been ubiquitous on the streets of the city seem to have vanished over the last several months.

Worse, because sometimes he turns a corner and still expects to find Sue and Franklin making brownies in the kitchen or Alex chasing the moloids down the hall.

Johnny has even more trouble sleeping than usual.  He stares up at the ceiling.  Somehow, a cluster of glow-in-the-dark stars escaped all of the destruction and remodeling. They're arranged particularly, in what is probably a real constellation.  Johnny wouldn't know about that, but the Future Foundation kids would never have done anything less than meticulously to scale and scientifically accurate. 

Johnny thinks vaguely that the stars look like an abstract chicken. Maybe a lopsided heart.  He stares at it until the muted sounds of the city finally lull him into a restless sleep. 

In his nightmares, he burns.  Franklin and Valeria are lost: in space, in a deep forest, in a cave.  The axe comes down, cracking his chest open over and over again, until the burning comes back and he wakes up in sunlight.

 

* * *

 

He's still lying in bed at half past noon, checking his Twitter mentions. Not even the story of Darla's weird run-in with her juice guy or the increasingly pointed string of snarky subtweets from Emma Frost can shake his mood. 

Peter checks in just before one and does so by rapping loudly at the window. Johnny ignores him for a heroic three minutes.  

"You own this entire building," he grumbles after he gets the latch undone. "Tell me Spidey, is it that you're too lazy to go in a door or too cheap to get biometrics installed on the windows? Aren’t you supposed to be in India?"

Peter shrugs as he crawls in through the window. “Giant mutant sewer beetle was blocking the M line this morning. Told them I had to cancel.”

“Isn’t that what your new spider-minions are for?” Johnny says. 

“Mi - Spider-Man’s got homework. Cindy might have been kidnapped? That’s next on my list, actually, but I, uh –“

“Wanted to make sure the Human Torch hadn’t gone off on another bender?” suggests Johnny bitterly.

“Your words, not mine,” says Peter. He pulls off the mask and runs a hand through his hair, unplastering it from his forehead. 

“Redecorating in here already?

“What?” Johnny turns to see Peter grinning at the glow-in-the-dark constellation dotting the ceiling. “No. The kids must have done it a while back.” 

Peter’s eyebrows scrunch together, suspicious. “This floor was totally destroyed. The contractors rebuilt it from scratch.”

Johnny shrugs, still sullen. “Then you must have dedicated employees.” 

Peter snorts and jumps easily onto the ceiling. He tries to pry one of the stars off the ceiling and succeeds only with a great deal of difficulty and falling plaster.

“Quit ripping holes in my house,” Johnny grumbles at him.

Peter opens his mouth and then closes it. He looks weird, peering upside-down at Johnny from the ceiling. “See, sometimes I don’t pick up on these things,” he says, “but I’m sensing you trying to start a fight here.”

Johnny rolls out of bed, taking the sheets with him since Pete has a habit of being a selective prude from time to time. Sure enough, when he glances over, he’s staring at a random corner of the room, cheeks flushed.

“I’m going to New Attilan,” Johnny says after pulling on his uniform. 

He puts a foot on the sill of the open window. “You should go to your meetings. Companies like that kind of thing.”

Things don’t really get better after that.  Doctor Strange drops by New Attilan to confirm Wanda's hypothesis and try to explain what they know about the dimension that he thinks Johnny's family is stuck in, which is essentially nothing.  Billy doesn't wake up from his coma and Johnny knows that somewhere down the line, he's fucked that up.  His moods vacillate wildly, irritating Medusa. He brushes off Cap's and Rogue's attempts to speak to him about it, and spends most of his time avoiding his team, often at the Baxter Building. Peter's rarely there, busy jetting around the world. 

He's avoiding Peter too.  Peter seems to be in a good place right now with the company and Spidey and all of his miny-mes running around, and Johnny –

Well, in addition to everything else, Johnny might be going crazy.

 

* * *

 

It starts small.

Johnny and Darla meet up at the trendy new ramen shop near her building. When his plate comes out, all of the noodles are piled into the shape of a four.

“Weird,” says Darla, after their waiter swears up and down that it was normal when it came out of the kitchen. “I was part of the FF too, you know,” she tells the bewildered server.

Johnny kicks her under the table. She takes a picture of his food and makes it her Snapchat story. 

A box of cupcakes from the place that Sue loves shows up in his room on New Attilan. When Medusa sees them, he has to explain why humans are so obsessed with getting their food individually baked and packaged. The other Inhumans are just as mystified. The next week, a suspicious Harry Osborne calls him from the Baxter Building to say that someone just delivered the FF’s standard pizza order from Sal’s – ten pies, including Bentley’s criminally disgusting onion and anchovy order that Vil and Wu protest every time.

Between the fresh weirdness of all of this and the general way he’s stretching himself thin, things in his personal life take a turn for the worse. He’s in space with the Unity Squad when an extremist group launches an attack on New Attilan.

Johnny’s not there, but luckily for the Inhumans, Black Bolt is.

 

* * *

 

Johnny is dancing. He’s not sure where he is or how long he’s been here. The lights flash around him at incredible speeds and everything around him is vibrating. He thinks he might have come here with people, but he must have lost track of them at some point.

That seems to be happening a lot lately.

"C’mon Sparky. Let's get you to bed."

He knows that voice.

"Spider-Sense tell you I was in trouble?" slurs Johnny, stumbling against him.

"Shhh!!," Peter hisses, even though the bass in this place is cranked so high the only way Johnny is even hearing the sound is because Peter has leaned in so close to his ear that he can feel his warm breath tickling the shell.  Goose bumps rise across his neck and Johnny shivers even though he doesn’t really get cold.  "I know that you know that that is not how it works," Peter says, rolling his eyes. "Crystal called."

"Crys called you?!" Johnny blurts out in surprise.

"Well she called Cap. Who called me. Guess that makes me the official Human Torch wrangler."

"Torchbearer," Johnny suggests vaguely.  Another drink has somehow appeared in his hand. Peter uses his superior strength and coordination to pry it away from his fingers. 

"I thought we were over the party thing," says Peter, close to his ear.

"Break-ups don't count," says Johnny. Peter stills. "Didn't Crys say?"

"Cap must have left that part out.”

 They're outside now, somewhere below 39th Street.  He’s not sure when they left the club. Peter's arm is strong and steady around his waist and Johnny can feel the warm puff of his breath against his throat as he leans in for leverage. “Wanted to work things out with her family."  He bobs his head in what he hopes approximates a mature, devil-may-care attitude. Maybe it fails because Peter makes a noise and his arm tightens. "Black Bolt saved New Attilan today.”

“I think I head something about that,” Peter says neutrally.

They both fall silent for a few minutes. 

**“** Maybe none of it’s real," Johnny blurts.

The arm around him shifts.  A siren wails close by; Johnny looks around on principle but doesn't see any flashing lights except for the ghoulish flickering of the first neon 'O' on the corner bodega.

"What's not real?" Peter's voice is indulgent. He hardly ever talks to him like this, soft and patronizing, and Johnny feels the heat rise.

"Ouch! Watch the temperature, Flamebrain." Peter's arm is yanked backwards and Johnny trips. 

"Sorry!” he says, squinting up at Peter from the curb. “Are you – did I -?”

“I’m fine, idiot.” There’s a hand in Johnny’s face. Pete’s voice is gentle. Johnny stares at the hand for a second, then takes it and lets Peter pull him back up easily.

Through the fog in his brain, it strikes with the same surprise as always, how strong Peter is. All that power inside that lithe frame.

“Yeah,” he says, vague. What are they talking about?

Then he remembers. His grip on Peter’s hand tightens. “A little while back, the Unity Squad got whammied. Thought we were all other people, living another life."  Why are Peter's eyes so brown? Johnny is trying to be  _serious_ about this and those eyes are soft and distracting -

"Don't look at me like that.  What if everything that's happened in the last few months is just a weird dream that Mysterio cooked up to torture me?” 

“Okay, Torch, you’re actually kind of freaking me out now.” Peter frowns. “What the hell are you-?”

Somebody clears their throat. Peter's eyes go up so Johnny looks up too.  Daredevil is hanging precariously off a lamppost.  "Sorry to break up the counseling session, but I've got ninjas headed this way so you'd better suit up or - are you okay?" The way his focus suddenly narrows to Johnny is somewhat unnerving, made even more so by the way Peter's suit is crawling up his face and giving Johnny creepy Venom flashbacks.  "That last drink was a poor choice.  No one should mix vodka and --" 

Life Lessons in Drinking from Daredevil is interrupted by the arrival of a dozen ninjas. Or possibly three or four ninjas that move much faster than he can track. It’s hard to tell. Johnny is not a ninja guy.  Johnny is a lights-on-fire guy.

“Are the ninjas part of your dream too?” asks Peter as he webs one across the face.

“I don’t know,” yells Johnny. He flames on so that he can deal with the guy creeping up behind him. The alcohol boils out of his blood in a second, focusing him. “All of these weird things keep happening to me and it all just seems – not real?”

Daredevil’s got the last of the ninjas in a chokehold. “We’re going to pay a little visit to your boss now,” he grins, then knocks him across the head with his billy club with a resounding _crack_ that makes Johnny and Peter both wince. He slings the unconscious body over his shoulder. “Thanks for the assist,” he tells them. “Please, continue to talk through your existential crisis. I’m on the side of this being real, by the way, and I like to think I have a pretty good sense of these things.” 

Johnny scowls after him. Peter sits on the side of the street and tugs Johnny down beside him.

“Look, I have no idea what weird things are happening to you or why, but I’m a hundred and twelve percent sure this is real since neither you or Mysterio would ever hallucinate me a multi-billion dollar company.” His voice is earnest and, okay, if this were really one of Johnny’s dreams, he’s pretty sure that this is the part where he would roll the mask up.

Instead, one of the ninjas starts to stir and Peter kicks him in the face. 

Johnny nods slowly. Now that he’s sober, he doesn’t feel so disoriented. Suddenly he remembers something else.

He slumps forward on the curb, burying his face in his hands. “Oh my god. I scorched a tapestry in the throne room of New Attilan that was a present from the first Black Panther. I am never going to be allowed back.” 

Peter leans into his side and lightly kicks his ankle. “Oof. Lucky your best friend bought a building for you so you still have a place to live here in New York, huh?”

 Johnny is so tired, but he cracks a grin. “What a nice guy. Sounds like a sucker though. Wait ‘til he finds out I’m not paying him rent.”

 

* * *

 

Soon after that, Franklin’s favorite hot dog stand seems to follow him all over the city one day, much to the vocal displeasure of its disgruntled owner. A week later, a lumpy cloud shaped exactly like Ben’s face hovers over Manhattan all afternoon. Billie Lumkin delivers boxes full of packing peanuts with no postmark to Johnny’s old address at the Baxter Building for a month, which a befuddled Parker Industries mailroom dutifully passes on. And every time Johnny walks into a building, ‘My Eyes Adored You’ starts playing on the radio.

That, at least, makes him smile. He remembers Franklin being – four? Five? Sometime soon after Val was born and before Doom had tried to kidnap her, Franklin had developed a Four Seasons obsession. It had been cute, at the time, how sure he was that the whole band was somehow a reference to them – Frank, Val, and the Four Seasons. Someone, Reed probably, had finally told him that the band had been around for decades but not before Franklin had painstakingly figured out what songs would make Baby Val giggle and what ones would make her face scrunch up and bawl.

It’s a good memory, but it doesn’t lessen the feeling that his old life is stalking him. He starts taking pictures of things, and every time something new catches him off guard, he pulls out his phone to assure himself that he’s not imagining things.

The final straw comes when a giant stegosaurus shows up in the Flatiron District. It’s bright blue and wearing a ski cap and roller skates.

The Unity Squad is the first team on the scene. Cap starts throwing out orders, but Johnny is frozen in midair, starting at the thing, sure he must be hallucinating. He’s finally cracked, because he must have seen this exact picture thousands of times.

It’s a picture that Franklin drew, the dinosaur on roller skates, all scrawled in blue crayon, stomping a taco truck. It hung on the fridge in the main apartments of the Baxter Building for years, surviving at least two alien invasions and an apocalypse. It hadn’t survived the last one though.

Rogue flies by. “You okay, Storm?”

Johnny shakes himself, flames on. “Sure, yeah. Do you see a blue dinosaur wearing a ski cap?”

She pauses, looks back at him, concerned. “Sure do, hot stuff. Roller skates, too. Where’s your head at today, hon?”

Johnny lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, still feeling dazed. “Just checking.”

A spray of bullets from Deadpool’s direction indicates that the attack has started.

Spider-Man – both Spider-Men, actually – show up just as they succeed in making the dinosaur extremely angry. It rears back, sliding and off balance and lets out a furious grunting noise.

Cap shouts for Johnny to go high, distracting it. Peter and the kid go for the ankles, sending the already unstable feet roller-skating in every direction.

It stumbles, and the tail swings back around, whipping towards the new Spider-Man.

Johnny doesn’t think, just dives. Spider-Man swings out of the way though, dodging the tail with ease, and Johnny tries to arrest his momentum. As he pulls up, he hears a yell, right before several hundred pounds of plated dinosaur tail catches him in the chest.

All his breath leaves him in an instant. His flames sputter as he crashes into a scaffolding rig and begins to drop in a clatter of metal and wood.

If Johnny didn’t feel like he’d just had a train dropped on him, he might be embarrassed by the way Peter scoops him out of the collapsing mess, grabbing him with his webbing and reeling him in with one hand.

“My hero,” he coughs, wrapping his arms around his rescuer’s neck as he hacks up a lung of dust and debris.

“You idiot,” Peter hisses at him, swinging towards the ground and laying him with surprising gentleness on some steps away from the ongoing battle. “Miles has a spider-sense!”

There’s something off about that. Johnny blinks several times. “Who’s Miles?”

Peter lets out a string of curses.

“Aunt May didn’t teach you that,” Johnny admonishes. “Did you always have so many fingers?”

“I’ve had more, once or twice,” Peter says. “Was your face always such a nice shade of purple?”

“Still better looking than you,” Johnny tries to say. He has to squeeze his eyes shut because the sun is so bright.

Somewhere nearby, Frankie Valli’s voice floats towards them, crooning about someone so close and yet so far.

"Hey hey hey, you gotta stay awake for me, Flamebrain. Spider-Man webbed up our blue pal so the paramedics are going to be able to get through any minute now.” His fingers card through Johnny’s hair, pushing it gently away from his face. It feels nice. “Why don’t you tell me how come every time I see you it's like I stepped onto the set of Jersey Boys?"

Johnny groans.  "Dunno.  Blame Franklin, I think."  He tries to lift his head and fails.

Peter's hands, warm and strong and worryingly sticky, slide under his neck and spine to help him sit.  Every part of his body feels bruised.

"Franklin?” That’s Peter’s frowny voice. “Did you hit your head?" he asks.

"Sure," says Johnny, cracking his eyes back open and squinting.  "Didn't you see?"

He can see Peter's mouth move, turning down under the Spider-Man mask, but he doesn't say anything.  Instead, his fingers press gently around Johnny's ribs.  The sensation is pleasant for a few minutes until he feels a sharp pain and belatedly realize that Peter's been checking for fractures.

"Hey!" He blinks hard, several times.

 "You might be concussed," Peter sounds kind of worried now.

"Ha!" Johnny tries to say, but throws up on Peter's knees instead.

That pretty much puts an end to the conversation.

 

* * *

 

The EMT that checks him out confirms his concussion and patches up his head neatly. In return, Johnny narrowly misses throwing up again on her shoes and then bleeds all over her hijab.

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Spider-Man comes back over from rinsing his legs off in the fountain. If there’s any justice in the world, tonight’s Fact Channel report will lead with video footage of Spider-Man cleaning vomit off of his suit in Madison Square Park. “And before you say brain damage I should tell you that his personality was always like this.”

The EMT – Amira, he thinks – frowns. “Just the concussion for sure, but I can’t recommend enough that you go to the emergency room for an x-ray of those ribs and further evaluation of your head,” she tells Johnny severely, dabbing more Neosporin onto one of the cuts on his face.

“It’s cool,” Johnny says, brushing her off. “Reed’s got these medical robots that can do a scan and let him know what I need.”

From over her shoulder, Spider-Man tilts his head at him, silent and weirdly hesitant.

Then Johnny realizes.

It’s a cold shock, like someone has poured a tank of ice water over him, remembering that no one will be there at the Baxter Building to fuss over his head or admire his battle wounds.

The focus on him is suddenly oppressive. The painful pressure around his chest intensifies and he feels his face heat up.

“At the very least, you should have someone monitoring your symptoms for the next twenty-four hours,” Amira says briskly over the gut-wrenching silence that has fallen.

“I have to head to San Francisco with, ah, Mr. Parker in a few hours,” Peter says apologetically. “You know if I could…”

“No need.” A smooth, familiar voice cuts in. “I can take custody of Jonathan from here.”

Johnny may have just sustained a head injury, but he can say with reasonable certainty that the handsome man lounging against the pillar a few feet away from them was not there a moment ago.

“Uh, you can’t be here?” Peter moves defensively between the man and Johnny, tensing like the man is making his spider-sense go off. “This whole area’s been blocked off.” He shifts his weight and after a second, scratches his head. “Also, do I _know_ you? I’m kind of getting a vibe here.”

Johnny snorts. “Catch up, Spidey,” he says with some amount of relish. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize Victor von Doom two-point-oh.”

Amira has stilled, hands paused in the middle of rolling up a strip of gauze.

“We’re cool here,” Johnny tells her. “But he’s still a supervillain so you should probably get to a minimum safe distance or whatever.”

Doom rolls his eyes. Handsomely. “There’s really no need for those kinds of dramatics, Jonathan,” he says to Johnny as she hurries away.

Peter’s still gaping. “Face,” he hisses at Johnny. “ _Mask_.”

Mild amusement, if it can be called that, crosses Doom’s face. “Yes,” he says, “I have removed my mask. And unless you would like me to remove yours, I desire to speak to Jonathan alone now.”

Johnny blinks at that. “Dude,” says Peter. “I’m not letting you kidnap the Human Torch right in front of me, no matter how great your bone structure is now.”

“Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of Spider-Man,” Johnny tells him.

Doom raises an eyebrow at that. “Is that so?” He makes a sound that somehow manages to be indifferent, and yet still too interested for Johnny’s strict comfort. “Nevertheless, I think not. I don’t have quite the patience today to bear his inane chatter this afternoon and I am in a bit of a hurry.” Peter lunges at him as he raises his hand, but it’s too late.  A quick gesture has him and Johnny fading away from the steps and into the living area of the Baxter Building.

“You can’t just do that,” Johnny grumbles, eying Doom warily from the couch.

“Of course I can.” His voice is amused. “The thing is, Jonathan, I have been monitoring dimensional breeches and patterns around Earth for the last few months. And ever since your fiasco with the Scarlet Witch’s boy, you have had quite a bit of dimensional energy following you. This…dinosaur…incident is just the latest example.”

Whatever Johnny expects Doom to say, this isn’t it. He stares at him, trying to come up with a response – any response.

Doom continues to talk, pacing on the other side of the coffee table. “The energy signatures are _from_ here but _originate_ elsewhere, which -"

“It’s Franklin, isn’t it.” Finally, Johnny finds his voice, interrupting whatever else was in that sentence.

Doom looks surprised. “Yes. Yes, I believe it is.” He pulls something out of his pocket – a Latverian ornament, made from glass and painted to look like Castle Doom. Sexy Doom is still a weirdo then.

“Do not mistake me, I have no particular interests in seeing the Richards’ and their ilk return to this dimension. I would like to see these dimensional incursions halted, however, as they disturb this dimension. Embedded in this bauble is a spell I set up to locate Valeria quite a while ago. If you are able to reach her dimension, it will act as a guide for you.”

Johnny stares at him silently, turning the ornament in his hands. Finally, he asks, “What is an ‘ilk’, anyway? I’ve always wondered.”

Doom’s eyes roll. “I don’t know why I bother. Goodbye, Jonathan.”

“Wait!” Johnny yells as he fades from sight. “You promised to watch me for twenty-four hours! I might pass out again!”

Doom’s indifferent shrug is the last thing Johnny sees before he’s gone.

Nice to know that some things don't change.

 

* * *

 

July bursts onto the city with its usual fanfare, then quickly devolves into a swampy lethargy.  The heat is oppressive, unbearable, and no one wants Johnny around. 

"Please go home," begs Rogue, after Johnny sends off a burst of heat to drive back a line of moloids who have invaded a shipyard in Brooklyn.  The asphalt is still bubbling.

Cap gives him the nod, so he leaves reluctantly, feeling strangely rejected.

The Baxter Building is currently in crisis mode, trying to handle a bug in the latest Webware update. The situation isn’t helped by the terrible puns currently flying around the R&D department, aided and abetted to no small degree by Peter himself.

Johnny ends up at Lennox Hill instead.

It’s been three months now, but Billy Kaplan looks the same as the night he collapsed at the Baxter Building. There are fresh flowers by his bed. Johnny thinks he remembers that the kid has a boyfriend, plus all of his other Junior Avenger friends. And his family.

He takes out Doom’s ornament, which he’s taken to carrying around with him when he’s not in uniform. Whatever Doom spelled it to do, there’s never any sign of it.

Someone clears their throat in the doorway.

“I hope I am not disturbing you,” says Wanda. Johnny shakes his head, gets up to give her some privacy.

“Stay, please,” she says. “I have something that I want to show you, in fact.”

She makes a hand sign and energy starts to flow from her fingers. “I have been trying to develop my more traditional magical ability,” she admits as a picture begins to form between them. “This is all that I have been able to do so far.”

Red energy crackles in the air; the picture itself is hazy, like it’s being seen through ripples of heat distortion. He can just make out Franklin through it, lying unconscious not unlike Billy a few feet away. He reaches out to it, unconsciously, and the image breaks up like he’s thrown a stone into a still pond.

"How come you aren't falling into a coma?" Johnny demands as the image slowly knits itself back together.

"Imagine that this is a dimensional window," Wanda says.  "We are only looking through the glass.  William attempted to open it up.  As it is, this is a difficult connection to maintain.” She closes her fist and the picture disappears.

Johnny tries to interpret what she’s saying. “So to actually get to what’s in this picture, what I would really need is a massive amount of energy.”

Wanda doesn’t say anything, but Johnny presses. “How much energy?”

She purses her lips. "An extended force of your powers would be sufficient," she admits.  “It would almost certainly burn you out.”

“I would do it,” Johnny confesses. “If I could get anyone to agree to use me to go after them.” An idea sparks. “Maybe Doom-?”

“ _Animo_ , cowboy.” Johnny doesn’t recognize the teenager in the doorway or have any idea how long she’s been standing there. She has thick curly hair and is rocking some seriously cool boots and a possibly ironic red, white, and blue t-shirt. Her arms are crossed and she meets his gaze directly. “I might have a better idea.”

The girl is a teammate of Billy’s. She says her name is America, which Johnny doesn’t comment on because her expression conveys a distinct lack of patience with any and all antics. He resolves to keep her and Peter very separate.

Her plan is to blow up a star and use the energy to rip a hole in dimensional space. It’s just short of suicidal, the kind of thing Reed or Val would come up with when there were ten seconds left on the clock.

As it happens, suicidal is the plan to beat.

Johnny doesn’t move. “Why are you helping me?” he asks her. “The FF means jack to you. I’m just the dumbass that got your friend stuck in a coma.”

She presses her lips together. “Don't start with me, hothead," she says, rolling her eyes.  "I get back to Earth and expect to eat my weigh in burgers and milkshakes. Instead, I have a bunch of text messages that my teammate’s in the hospital in some cosmic coma.” She tosses her hair back over her shoulder with a defiant jerk of her chin. **“** I’m a hero. I help people, I don’t need a reason.”

Johnny’s phone lights up with a text from Peter’s regular number. _911@bb_

“Thanks,” he says, distracted, looking from her to Wanda. “There’s an emergency downtown, I have to –“

“Be a hero?” America suggests, rolling her eyes. “Call me when you’ve got a ship.”

Johnny flies back to the Baxter Building. It’s surrounded by police, which answers one question. He flies over the barricades and into the atrium where a situation is definitely going down.

A line of men and woman in neatly pressed suits is lined up against a wall with their hands on their heads. In the center of the room, under the looming shadow of the FF, Peter seems to be grudgingly being held captive by – Johnny can’t believe his luck – Lady Stilt-Man.

Johnny hovers in the air a moment, really appreciating the scene.

All eyes have turned to Johnny. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouts, “time to clear the area. The police outside will escort you out of the perimeter, blah, blah blah, et cetera.” He flies forward so that he’s between her and the path to the door.

“No!” Lady Stilt-Man yells. “No one leaves until I find Spider-Man.” She shakes Peter by the collar. “I know you can tell me where he is.”

“Lady, you are barking up the wrong tree here.” Peter’s not a very good actor. Or liar. Johnny needs to save him from himself.

He swoops down. “You okay, man?”

“You know him?” she sounds dismayed and turns her anger on Johnny. “Did he call you here?”

“Um.” Peter is shaking his head behind her line of vision. “Nope. Just in the neighborhood. This is my old home you’ve taken hostage here.”

“You’re friends with Spider-Man, aren’t you?” she snarls. “Tell me where he is or all of these people get stomped.”

Johnny evaluates that statement with the knowledge gained from his many years of experience as a superhero and determines that it’s not a credible threat.

“Where is,” Johnny starts, looking over at Peter, “you know. Your bodyguard.”

Peter winces. “There was a showdown with the board last week after the thing with Shocker. He’s, uh…taking a break from the company again.” He looks back at Lady Stilt-Man. “Which I told her!”

“What?” Johnny frowns.

“We’ve had a lot of supervillain attacks this month,” Peter admits. “Parker Industries has become a bit of a target –”

“Can we focus on the emergency at hand?” Harry Osborn seems pretty indignant for a guy who has his hands on his head because he’s been taken captive by a lady with giant metal legs.

“Chill,” Johnny tells him. “I’m a professional. I got this.”

He shoots a stream of flames in front of her face, temporarily blinding her.

“What is with you heroes?” she screams, stumbling back. He flies tight circles around her and she spins wildly, still squinting, trying to track him.

On the ground, he sees Peter kick out with a blow that looks insubstantial enough but probably has the force of a couple two-ton trucks behind it. She trips back as her ankle collapses and crashes to the ground.

“Damn it.” Johnny scowls down at her. Another few inches to the left and he might have been able to knock Ben’s elbow off.

The Parker Industries employees start edging away from the wall and the police rush in. “Okay!” Johnny shouts. “Anyone who wants a selfie, be prepared to tell me how much greater I am then Spider-Man.”

“Argh,” Peter scowls at him from the floor.

“Your selfie is free,” Johnny tells him magnanimously. “But don’t think we’re not going to talk about this Spider-Man-getting-fired-and-you-not-telling-me thing.”

Peter makes a strangled sound and flops back on the floor again.

 

* * *

 

Johnny thinks about what Wanda and America have told him and tries to put together a plan. He needs a spaceship to get to the star that America wants him to blow up, but getting someone to lend him one proves more difficult that Johnny had expected. Organizations aren’t exactly lining up to loan their multi-million dollar vehicles to a noted thrill-seeker and professional arsonist, no matter how good his intentions. So far, plans A through G have failed, with everyone from NASA to SHIELD turning him down.

(Plan Z is ask Doom. Johnny isn’t quite prepared for that yet, especially when Victor is swanning around with Iron Man, still looking like he stepped out of the GQ edition of ‘Rehabilitated Psycho of the Year’.)

Dejected, he heads to the garage – abandoned, now that ‘Spidey’ is gone – to work his frustrations off.  It only takes him a couple hours to install a radio and external speakers into the traitorous replacement Spider-Mobile.  It's a little harder to wire the speakers to the accelerator, but never let it be said that Johnny isn't relentless in pursuit of a good prank.

He's getting 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' cued up when he hears a crash from the other side of the garage.

“Cut it out!” someone says. It sounds like a kid. “Man, this is so embarrassing. This is not how I wanted to meet – hey, give that back!”

Johnny pulls his head out of the engine and turns around, tightening up his grip on the wrench he’s holding.

He has to stop and blink for a second. That’s America Chavez again, motorcycle boots firmly planted in the middle of the garage. She’s got a younger teen with her and she’s gripping his ear, despite his loud protests. One of her hands is holding an old Nova Corps helmet and she stretches it away from his grasping fingers. His other arm is thrown over his face so that his features are obscured.

“Um.” Johnny sets the wrench down and crosses his arms. “Is this a situation that should concern me?”

America releases the kid’s ear and puts her fists on her hips. She’s got a totebag looped over one arm, Johnny notices – it says Carefree Public Library and is smoking slightly. The kid stops reaching for the helmet and throws his other hand over his eyes.

“Explain,” America orders.

“It was an accident!” the kid hollers, more at her than at Johnny. “Cholesterol damage of saving New Jersey!”

“Collateral,” says America.

“ _Whatever_.”

Johnny snaps his fingers, sending off a couple of sparks. “Hi. Not known for my patience, here. _What is going on_.”

"I stopped by the space outpost at Knowhere the other day,” he says. “Some of the people there – they know I’m from Earth. They had something for you. “From – your niece? Valeria?”

That wasn’t really what Johnny was expecting. Kind of horribly, he thinks he might cry.  "You saw her?"

Nova hesitates, scuffing his foot.  "No," he admits, after a few terrible seconds.  "A smuggler who runs through Knowhere found this," - he points at the bag with an elbow since both of his hands are still trying to cover his face - "at an abandoned Drathian outpost in the Hod system.  And it was brought there by a deserter from the Kree imperial army in another dimension, who got it from someone in a whole different dimension from that. There was a note saying to deliver it to Jonathan Storm and Benjamin Grimm of the planet Earth in this universe.” His voice rises again. “But then when I got back to the planet there were these parasite things over in Newark and there was a fight and Thor totally zapped me and the note got destroyed and I’m really sorry but it _wasn’t my fault_!" He takes a deep breath. “Now can I have my helmet back?”

Johnny is having trouble following.  "A smuggler found a totebag from Earth with a note to bring it back to me and Ben?”

The kid – Nova, Johnny surmises – colors slightly through his hands. “The bag is mine,” he mutters. “The mouse is what got picked up.”

“Mouse?”

America rolls her eyes and hands him the bag. She also tosses Nova’s helmet back to him and it bounces off his shoulder. “Ow,” he complains, removing one hand from his face and grasping around blindly for the helmet.

Carefully, Johnny pulls a stuffed animal out of the tote. He stares at it, baffled, for a few seconds before he recognizes the mouse that he sent to Valeria a couple months before.  

It doesn't look new like it was when Johnny sent it out into the universe. The fur is clumped in places, a couple of whiskers are missing, and the side of its face looks almost charred. There's also a pink ribbon tied around its neck, printed with block letters in uneven writing that Johnny instantly recognizes as Valeria’s – HELP ME GET HOME!!! BAXTER BUILDING, 40 E. 42nd ST NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PLANET EARTH (DIMENSION-616)

“It said something about…a spaceship? And someone named Frank?”

“Franklin,” says Johnny.

“Yeah! That was it. I honestly didn’t see much,” he admits. “My mom always told me it was rude to read other people’s mail.” He sticks his tongue out at America. “It definitely said something about needing some help though. She wanted a spaceship for something.”

Johnny grips the battered stuffed animal tighter than he means to. “Okay,” he says, more to himself then to either of them. “Okay.”

America picks up the totebag and gives it back to Nova. “Okay, now get lost,” she tells him.

He doesn’t move. “Are you going to be okay?” he frowns at Johnny from under his helmet. “I really am sorry. I love the Fantastic Four; you guys are the greatest.”

Johnny still doesn’t speak.

“Weren’t you yelling the whole way over here about having to be back in class before your free period ended?” America asks pointedly.

“Aw, crap,” Nova says. “This is your fault!” he yells back to America as he flies away.

America rolls her eyes. She’s planted her hands squarely on her hips. “You got that spaceship yet?” she asks.

“Working on it,” Johnny scowls at her.

She sighs. “When I was a kid, I got sealed off in a separate dimension from everyone I ever knew. It sucks. Don’t let it happen to you.”

Then, with a kick, she’s gone, leaving Johnny to digest that.

 

* * *

 

Johnny is sunbathing shirtless on the roof of the Baxter Building, soaking up the last few days of summer and thumbing through his phone, waiting without much hope to hear back from Captain Marvel about borrowing a ship from the Alpha Flight program. 

A string of emoji buzz in: skull, bomb, pickax, flying money, puffer fish, see-no-evil monkey, then a whole block of tacos, plus at least three more eggplants than Johnny is strictly comfortable with.

Deadpool’s Unity Squad groupchat contributions continue to make Johnny regret a lot about his life, so he's glad for the hum of an engine that signals someone arriving on the roof.  Pete's been gone for 36 hours with the -  _ugh_  - Web-Jet so he'll probably be rumpled and sleep deprived.  Johnny would never admit it, but soft-edged and silly is a good look on him.  He tells himself that it's because he misses having people to take care of.

He grins into his towel, waiting for Peter’s squawk of prudish outrage when he sees Johnny up here.

"Jonathan."

Johnny sits up so fast that his sunglasses fly off his face. 

Medusa snags them with a strand of her hair and wordlessly offers them back to him.  Johnny scrambles to his feet, feeling clumsy and caught off guard by her, here, standing on the roof in full royal regalia, Lockjaw at her feet. Parked behind her on the roof of the Baxter building is a huge Inhuman ship, one of the royal fleet.

Neither of them speaks for a moment.  He takes the sunglasses from her outstretched tendril of hair and puts them back on.  Once his eyes are shaded, he can look at her without feeling like he’s giving something away.

She seems better.  Less tired.  The months they were together were filled with crisis, and there had been an edge of desperation in falling together in the midst of all of it.  A few weeks with Black Bolt seems to have stabilized things.  It makes sense - the familiar presence, the status quo.  Johnny likes to think he has a good enough sense about how married people work after living with Reed and Sue for so long. Even her hair looks happier, waving in an energetic halo around her head.

Maybe he's not quite over the whole thing.

The realization makes him a little mad.  He crosses his arms across his chest and glowers.  Medusa's a queen though, so she doesn't let the sudden hostility deter her.  "Johnny," she says again, forging past the awkward reunion, "I...hope you are well."

"Sure," Johnny says, totally flat.  "Life's great. Family still missing, life still on hiatus, same old same old."

Her face remains mostly impassive, but her eyebrows draw together just slightly.  Belatedly, he remembers her scorn for childish antics and overt emotional displays.

She inclines her head slightly. "Your anger is understandable. I am aware that I have hurt you," she says neutrally.  "My choices were right for myself and my people, but I _am_ sorry that they have caused you pain at an already difficult time.  I do not come here to cause discord, but with an offering that I hope will be of some use in easing your troubles."

Her hair floats behind her now, tendrils pointing towards the ship.

"It has been made known to me that you intend to pursue your family.” Johnny understands that to mean that Darla has a big mouth.  “I know that due to the current state of affairs, you lack a vessel.  Please, take this one, in recognition of the deep regard of the Inhumans for the Fantastic Four as friends and allies, as well as my enduring personal affection and respect for you."

He knows other heroes who would refuse, out of pride maybe or to prove a point.  Maybe Johnny has just gotten better at recognizing olive branches lately though, because all he feels is relief.

“What’s going on here?”

Peter must have driven in, because Johnny didn’t hear the jet arrive. He steps out onto the roof and surveys the scene: Johnny, shirtless, Medusa, in her regalia, hair reaching out for him, giant Inhuman starship behind them.

Medusa is still waiting. His mouth feels dry and he has no idea why he suddenly feels so uncomfortable. “Thanks,” he manages to say. “I…thank you. I accept your gift.”

“Johnny?” Peter says, when neither of them speaks. “What’s going on?” His voice is strange, cold and decidedly unfriendly.

Johnny swallows. “She’s giving me a ship to help find the Fantastic Four.”

Peter’s eyes snap to Medusa and the spaceship behind her.

“And what does she want?” he asks.

“What?” Johnny looks back at him, thrown by the hostility in his tone. “She – nothing, it’s just a gift.”

“I should be getting back to New Attilan,” Medusa says. Her eyes sweep between him and Peter and Johnny feels strangely scrutinized.

“Wait –“ he reaches for her, but Lockjaw is already doing his teleportation thing and the two of them fade from view.

Johnny whirls on Peter. “What is your problem?”

“She got back together with her ex!” Peter shouts, strangely high pitched. He does look tired. There are huge circles under his eyes and the fading traces of a bruise near his temple, covered up with make-up this morning probably but emerging now after the long day, like a shadow under the sweaty and mussed line of his hair. His shoulders are tight and hunched, defensive under his rumpled suit. “She shouldn’t be up here messing with your head.”

“Messing with my-,” Johnny’s rage builds quickly, a volcano trapped inside his chest. For a moment, he’s so mad he can barely see straight. Heat pulses through him and from the acrid smell in the air, his hair has started to smoke.

“At least she’s trying to help,” shouts Johnny. He’s forgotten what it feels like to be this angry with someone, how infuriating it is to love someone so much and keep hitting walls. “Nobody else is! Everyone just goes on like nothing has happened, like they just popped off to France or, I don’t know, Alaska, for a little R&R!” His voice cracks a little.

“That’s not fair,” says Peter defensively, his own voice rising. “I miss them too, but the company –”

“You wouldn’t be standing here telling me about the company if it was Aunt May who was missing,” Johnny yells back. There’s a voice in the back of his head that sounds like Sue, warning him that he’s taking this too far, to a place neither of them really want to go. He ignores it and continues. “And! You’d be right - I’ve hung around here too long. I should have gone after them a year ago,” Johnny snaps. “I don’t care if no one thinks I’m smart enough or powerful enough to do it. I need to find them.”

“Nobody thinks that!” Peter yells.

“Yes, they do,” Johnny’s fists are clenched and he’s throwing sparks. “Even you! _Fine._ They’re not your family! I get it. Thanks for making yourself clear.”

Peter whitens, then slumps, defeated. Johnny opens his mouth to shout again, but can’t find the words. Instead, he flames on and flies away, leaving Peter alone on the roof.

 

* * *

 

He spends two days crashing at Jen’s place, fuming and refusing to talk about anything. After she threatens to call Wyatt, he settles into a sulk and spends twelve hours straight hatewatching Gordon Ramsay. Finally, his Google Alert for Peter Parker notifies him that the CEO of Parker Industries has been spotted in London, making it safe to return to the Baxter Building.

Tony sends the specs for modifying the Inhuman ship back quicker than Johnny expects and he immediately sets to work.

It makes it easier, that he’s not speaking to Peter, he tells himself. Less distraction. No more afternoons of blowing off board meetings and swinging through the city. In fact, since Peter flies straight from London off to Shanghai, they’re able to totally avoid each other.

He doesn’t miss him. He’s just doing what he has to do to get his family back.

The amount of work needed to allow the ship to absorb the energy of a star is overwhelming. Johnny can’t remember the last project that he tackled that required this much focus. Even with Iron Man and Scott Lang on call to walk him through the more advanced engineering, the work is physically and mentally grueling, nothing like working on his cars.

Three weeks into the project finds him wedged three feet deep into the front hull, trying to retrofit it with high heat-absorption panels.

He doesn’t hear the approaching footsteps, so he tenses when the voice comes from behind him.

“Johnny?”

His hand clenches around the pry bar he’s holding, but he doesn’t move. If he looks down his body, he can see a pair of slacks and the last couple inches of a tie that Johnny made him buy a few months ago after setting fire to several older, more questionable ones.

“I didn’t expect to see you,” and true enough, Peter really does seem surprised.

“Thought I would have given up on this by now?” Johnny says bitterly.

“No. I – It’s fashion week. You love fashion week.” Peter says, a little helplessly. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be out, not - up here.”

Johnny doesn’t know how they’ve gotten so out of step, when Peter has always been the one who understands him best. He doesn’t want it to be like this.

“Can you – can we talk? I actually – I need to apologize.”

All of the anger bleeds out of him. “Fine. Me first though.” He pulls his head out of the ship and makes himself look at Pete. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“They’re your family –“ Peter protests.

“They’re yours too. I gave them too you a long time ago and I know you love them.” There’s a giant spot of grease on his hand, and he resists the urge to scratch his neck.

Peter shuffles closer. “You were right though. I’ve been avoiding helping you because – every time I think about them being gone, I just can’t. I can’t think. My mind goes –” he makes an explosion kind of sound and spreads his fist. “It’s nuts, I hate it, and so I’ve just been. Thinking of other things. The company, mostly.”

Johnny’s shoulders loosen. “You? Avoiding problems that you can’t punch?” he snorts.

“Yeah, who would have guessed,” Peter says. “And – don’t laugh, okay? - I’m scared about you, too, if you go after them. I’m really – it would be terrible if you disappeared too. It would really really suck.”

“I’m scared too,” promises Johnny, and indulges himself by leaning in, pressing his chin against the warm sweaty base of Peter’s throat.

Peter hugs back. "So we're good?" he asks.

"Yeah," Johnny says.

"Great," says Peter, sounding relieved. "So now maybe you can tell me why there are a bunch of upside-down cups all over the floor of the apartment downstairs."

Johnny starts to laugh. "Franklin’s Wakandan scarab collection resurrected itself and crawled out of storage yesterday," he tells him. "I had to run around the apartment and trap all of them. By the way, you need to get a cleaning service like a normal rich person. There are dust bunnies the size of some small independent nations under your couch. You’re going to have the Cave of Caerbannog in about a week at the rate reality is shifting around here."

"Franklin." Peter shakes his head. "Torch, your family is something else."

"Yeah," Johnny says fondly. "I'm waiting for T'Challa to call me back and tell me if it's okay to squish them or if it will bring a ten thousand year old bad luck curse down on my head."

Peter snorts. "That is actually...not half bad thinking," he says.

Johnny preens. "I'm not just a very pretty face, you know."

He's waiting for the inevitable smart comment, but it doesn't come. When he looks over, there's something soft in Peter's face instead. "Not only, anyway," he grins and flicks Johnny's nose. "Come on inside. I think you may have missed one; I saw something scuttle under the fridge. I'll lift, you can do your cup thing."

Johnny rolls his eyes, but follows.

 

* * *

 

Of course, that's when everything at Parker Industries goes to hell. 

Johnny is brunching with Jen when he hears about the vote.

"Sure sounds like Franklin to me. Nothing is ever simple with that kid, right?" Jen is saying as she polishes off her third plate of French toast. Eating with Jen is terrifying. But also kind of great, because Jen is great and brunch is great and the expression on the waiter's face every time she orders a new plate of food is also great. 

Mimosas are also great. Sue loves the mimosas here. This morning, Johnny has had four.

There's a fine line between having too many mimosas at brunch because he's having fun and having too many mimosas at brunch because he's sad and Johnny Storm is trying desperately to walk it.  Today, it seems to be mostly working.

"-Johnny!!" Jen is kind of frowning at him. He looks down at her plate, but, nope, still half of it left to go. "I said, isn't that your friend?"

Johnny follows her gaze to the TV on the wall and has to kind of squint to read the ticker, which reads 'vote of board this morning'. He blinks at it a couple times and then reads something about a Twitter spat that Dazzler got into and a new batch of census data on Inhumans before the original chyron comes back around: 'CEO of Parker Industries removed as head of company by vote of board this morning'. 

"That can't be right," he says out loud. He pats his jeans, searching his pockets for his phone.  Mimosas were making a pretty revealing argument about why they weren't so great after all. 

"Here." Jen passes it to Johnny from where it's sitting between them on the table. It’s right there as he scrolls through Twitter, checks his news alerts. "Parker Industries CEO removed."

"I-" Johnny stands so quickly he almost upsets the table and swears. "I should go-" 

"Oh sure, leave me with the bill," Jen mutters, but she stands up as well.  "Do what you gotta do, Storm.  And hey -" she catches his wrist before he can take off.  "Don't be a stranger, kiddo."

Johnny wrenches away with a scowl and Jen lets him go with the sort of sigh that Sue used to make when Johnny was about to do something stupid but she knew it wouldn't make a difference to bring it up.

Suddenly he feels very sober.  He misses Sue.  He misses Val and Franklin and Reed.  He misses Ben.  He misses his mom, like he hasn't in years, like he's a kid again and she's just died and he doesn't know what will happen or how he'll ever learn to live without her.  The loneliness is cold and crushing and lasts long after he flames on, burns off the alcohol in his blood, heads back to Peter's apartment in the Baxter Building, where, of course, _of course_ , he's not there.

Johnny puts on a police scanner that he pulls out of Peter's room and begins fussing around in the kitchen, taking out his anger out on a random pineapple, which is one of only about four pieces of food in Peter’s kitchen.

Spider-Man is on a veritable crime-stopping spree.  There are reports of him being sighted all through midtown, doing whatever a spider does, if what that spider does is punch muggers and beat up guys in terrible costumes and then going radio silent for several hours and pop up in the East River.  Harry Osborn calls six times, leaves message after message on Peter's ancient landline. 

"You only have one type of cheese in your fridge," is what comes out of his mouth when Peter finally stumbles through the window right before rush hour, trailing webbing and spandex and more than a little mud.  The side of his costume is shredded.  Johnny crosses his arms and scowls, trying to radiate how strong his disapproval is.

"You look like Sue," Peter snorts, offhand, yanking off his mask. They both freeze immediately.

There's a painfully silent pause.

"I heard about the vote- " Johnny starts to say.

Peter shakes his head, sending drops of water flying across the kitchen. Johnny evaporates several before they can touch either him or the sandwich he’s making. “Yeah, you and the rest of Manhattan,” he says bitterly.

“I could write it in the sky, if you want,” Johnny tells him. “Reach the cord-cutters.”

“Please don’t.” Peter collapses against the island, still dripping.

“That bad?” Johnny tosses a towel at him. “CNBC said you got a hefty severance package.”

“You watched CNBC?” Peter asks, horrified. “Jeez, this is what corporations do to people. Johnny Storm watching news that isn’t ‘E’. Is nothing pure anymore?”

Johnny flicks a piece of bread at him. “I turned it on to see how bad it was after you didn’t come home,” he says.

Peter buries his head in his hands “Oh man, it was pretty bad. It was…” he makes a crash-and-burn noise.

Johnny turns back to the sandwich he was making before Peter swung in, moving the cutting board out of the way of the dripping and heating the bread up between his hands.

“You washed those, right?” says Peter.

“People who went swimming in the East River don’t get to complain about cleanliness,” Johnny informs him.

“How about people who are living Danger Zones?” Peter grumbles under his breath. “What is this?”

“It’s comfort food.” Johnny glowers at him, trying hard to radiate his disapproval. “And you’re the comfortee so stop trying to contaminate everything.”

“Mmm, you’re an angel, angel.” Peter bats his eyelashes at him and falls on the sandwich before Johnny can even get it on a plate.

Johnny crosses his arms and watches him eat, wordlessly hands him another hot sandwich once he’s finished.

Once he’s finished eating, Peter quickly grows uncomfortable in the silence. “I stopped a stabbing over by the docks,” he says.

Johnny raises an eyebrow at him.

“Quit it,” Peter says, annoyed. “It is what it is. I never even wanted the stupid company. I’m a terrible boss. I’m always having to run out on things. Now I can just – go back to being me.”

“Still sucks,” Johnny tells him.

“Yeah.” Peter groans, burying his head in his hands.

Johnny sighs. “Come on,” he says, tugging him over to the couch. "Sue always says you should take a day, when something big happens. You don't have to figure it out now." He manhandles him onto the cushions and then settles beside him. "If you want to get the company back, we can figure out a way."

“Star Trek marathon?” Peter grins at him, still too wide and brittle.

“Whatever you want,” says Johnny.

Peter falls asleep ten minutes in, but Johnny stays awake for a long time, staring at the sweep of his hair and the circles under his eyes and wishing, not for the first time, that he could give him all the good luck he deserves.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s not on the couch anymore when Johnny wakes up. His heart sinks a little and he pulls his phone out, ready to find out that Twitter is buzzing about an early morning crime-stopping spree. Maybe to switch things up, he’s fighting a villain who doesn’t have a psychological compulsion to dress up like someone who just escaped from a circus.

Twitter has nothing. Peter definitely isn’t in the kitchen though, or his room, or anywhere else in the apartment.

At something of a loss, Johnny heads to the roof.

“Okay, so it took some time, but I finally got the core fusion device in sync with the energy conversion shields and rewired the thrusters. I think we should be able to leave in a couple days. Maybe tomorrow if I get some coffee soon.”

Peter is covered in grease and his eyes have a slightly manic edge to them.

"What?" Johnny blinks. "You're not coming with me." It's a statement, not intended for debate, but that doesn't stop Peter. 

Peter is insistent.

"Mi- the other Spider-Man and Silk, they've got the friendly neighborhood all covered". Peter tries to crack a smile, but it slides off his face as soon as it appears.

"Anyway.  You're even dumber than I thought if you think I'm going to let you go off into space on your own."

"What about Aunt May?" Johnny asks, baffled.  "Harry? Mary-Jane?" Peter’s got _stuff_ , responsibilities, people – he always has.

"Aunt May and Harry will be fine.  MJ's got a good thing going with Stark.  I'm - we're not - we aren't like we were, before." Before Doc Ock, Johnny interprets.

"I'm going to use a star to blow a giant dimensional hole," Johnny argues.  "After that I have a set of incomplete directions and literally no plan.  This could go wrong fifty times before I leave the galaxy.

"All the more reason for me to come."  Peter crosses his arms.  "Someone's got to keep your stupid in check. And I really don't want to tell Ben that I let you run off to space by yourself and get blown up."

He should say no.  This is his mission, his life that he's risking and his alone.  Johnny knows better than most people how wrong these things can go.  Sometimes, in his darkest moods, he thinks that Reed should have said no, should have never allowed Johnny to board that stolen ship.  His turn without powers last year had pretty much cured him of that fantasy, but he still wondered occasionally how Reed could have done it so easily, allowed the people he loved best to join his insane pursuit with no regard for the consequences.  But if he hadn't, would he be even more alone than he is now, no Fantastic Four, no Future Foundation, no Jen or Wyatt or Peter?

Johnny's never been good at being alone.

Peter's still looking at him and there's something fierce in his face that Johnny hasn't seen there for a long time.  "Fine," he sighs.  "But when our ship gets captured by space pirates and we're stranded in some alternate dimension forever, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Don't be such a pessimist, Storm," Peter says cheerfully, flinging his long spider-limbs around Johnny's shoulders.

The role-reversal is not escaping Johnny, and nor is the irony of what they are about to do.  Heading to space with bad directions and a worse plan - like that's never gone wrong before.

 

* * *

 

Peter takes off the next day to make his excuses to Aunt May. Johnny is loading the last of the supplies they need when he touches back on the roof and shifts his costume back into civies.

“I went to see MJ,” he says. “Since. You know. She’s kind of the secret keeper in case anything goes wrong.”

“Bet she’s pretty happy about that,” Johnny says. He knows Peter and MJ have been on shaky ground with each other for a while now.

Peter laughs bitterly. “Not so much, no. Says she’s a person, not a last will and testament service and she’s got enough superhero disappearances to deal with as is.”

“She’s not wrong,” Johnny tells him.

“She’s choosing to deal with Tony’s shit though.” Peter scowls. “And then she said-”

He breaks off and interestingly, flushes up his neck. “Anyway, I still need to find Harry and convince him I’m not having a breakdown. I’ll be back before America gets here.” He backs towards the ledge, suit crawling back up his face before Johnny can press him. “Scout’s honor!”

Johnny watches him swing off and sits by the edge of the Baxter Building, phone in his hand.  He’s talked to Wyatt.  Left a message for Jen.  Packed the spaceship. It feels like there should be more to do to prepare for leaving the planet for an indefinite amount of time, but if there is, the protocols are in Sue's head, or Reed’s, somewhere across the multiverse.  Ben sure hadn't made any arrangements when he took off.

Which brings him to the point.  Gritting his teeth, he thumbs open his phone and searches out a familiar contact.  He's expecting the familiar rumble, ‘ _you've reached the ever-loving, blue-eyed Thing, say wot ya gotta say’_ that he must have gotten a hundred times since Ben took off.

"The number you have dialed is no longer in service.  Please hang up and -"

Johnny ends the call and clenches his fist around the phone, which explodes in a shower of sparks.  Damn it.

Before he really can think about it, he drops the smoking bits of metal and takes off.

There's always a second when he jumps, before he's flamed on, that his stomach drops out a little - what if this time is different.  What if this time, it doesn't work.

But then the flames kick on and this time is not different than the thousands of times before.  Johnny blows off steam for a couple hours, flying way out of the city. He picks a fight with a flock of geese and rescues a stray hot air balloonist. When he gets back, Spider-Man and America Chavez are on the roof of the Baxter Building, having what is soon going to be the world's most dangerous conversation if the way her fists are clenched is any indication.  He lands between them.

"No maiming before we leave Earth.”

America’s face is impassive. “You boys ready? I’ve got other places to be. Space sharks don’t punch themselves.”

“Five secs,” Johnny tells her. He rushes inside and grabs a spare phone to activate.

Flash doesn't answer his calls either, but at least Johnny doesn't take that personally.  "Hey V," he says, once the voicemail has picked up, "Big, orange, and rocky hasn't paid his Verizon bill since he skipped town, I guess, but I figured I'd let you know - I'm off to find them. And I'm not coming back until I do. So."  He pauses, ready to leave it there and just hang up.  "Spider-Man's coming with me, so even odds on us killing each other before anything else gets a chance to." It seem less funny when he says the sentence out loud. "Catch you later."

He takes a deep breath and walks back out to the roof. “So are we doing this, or what?”

America programs the coordinates of their star into the ship. “It’s remote,” she explains to Peter as Johnny pilots them into warp. “You want to explode something that’s not going to kill all of the life in its star system. This system has no planets.”

“No life at all?” Peter asks, surprised.

“Nothing within a ten lightyear radius,” she says.

It only takes a few hours to get to the star that they’re going to absorb to power the dimensional hop. Johnny can’t help but be impressed by the Inhuman technology.

“You do dimensions, right?” Peter points out, “Can't you get us any closer?"

America gives him a flat look and shakes her head. "I’m not taking you halfway across the galaxy for fun, chico. I can’t punch through on this one.”

"Right," says Johnny. "Thanks for the help. Really.”

She salutes them, kind of mockingly. " _Buena suerte_ , kids."

"Uh, thanks," says Johnny.

With a stomp that shakes the whole ship, a star shaped hole appears in the floor. America jumps through it without hesitation and it closes up behind her.

There's a beat. "Well," says Peter, "Guess it's just us now, Torchy. Time to break out the special road trip mixtape."

"Ugh," says Johnny, "I regret bringing you already."

 

* * *

 

Once America is gone, Peter changes out of his uniform and into his civvies.  He comes back to the bridge looking comfortable in well-worn jeans and tragic-but-soft-looking flannel, just as Johnny is finishing up the final safety checks.

"Last chance to back out." Johnny tries to sound casual but his fists are clenched around the controls.

"Me? Back down?" Peter scoffs. "Do your thing, partner."

No one needs to tell Johnny twice. He primes the engines and flicks on the energy conversion fields.

“What now?” Peter asks, leaning over Johnny’s shoulder to stare at the console. He can feel his breath warm against his neck. He brings up the energy readings.

“Tony – don’t make that face – explained it before I left. Once our shields hit five thousand degrees we’ll start converting energy at seven times the normal rate. Once we reach that point, we’re trying to absorb the star before it absorbs us so we have to be prepared to fly straight at it so we reach our target time frame.”

“Notice me not saying anything about how insane this plan is,” says Peter.

“The options were burn out a star or burn me,” Johnny tells him. “There’s still time for Plan B if you want”

Peter shudders. “No thanks. I prefer you alive.”

The energy monitor beeps.

“Time to test that,” says Johnny, grabbing the controls for the thrusters. “It’s about to get hot in here.” The ship shoots forward.

The effect is immediate. A rush of heat flares through the deck. Before Johnny really has time to think about it, he's grabbing Peter and hauling him close, shielding him from the temperature.

“That’s not supposed to happen, is it?” Peter shouts, wresting himself away from Johnny’s grip to check the ship’s status.

A creaking sound comes from the hull.

Peter's trying to adjust the controls, diverting energy to the heat shields, but Johnny can tell its not going to be enough.  The temperature is rising quickly, as quickly as Johnny can absorb it.

He breathes out and grits his teeth, pressing his hands against the inside hull of the ship, draining it of heat.  More surges to fill its place, but he absorbs it as fast as it rushes in.  It's hot, really hot, and there's a lot of it.  He can feel it fighting him, struggling to release.

With a shout, he pushes it away all at once, with the force of a supernova.

The ship shudders once.  Then, there’s a flash of light.

They’ve made it, he thinks, just as the darkness rushes in.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a weight over his eyes when he returns to consciousness. For a moment, it’s the only sensory input he has. Everything is dark and silent, the buzz of the ship completely absent.

The weight moves. It’s an arm, Johnny realizes, as the light begins to come back. He squints and sits up, dislodging the arm – Peter’s arm, attached (thankfully) to his seemingly unharmed body. Peter stirs as he moves and Johnny looks around as the memory of what happened returns to him.

The bridge is a mess. Everything not bolted down is now scattered around the floor and several of the controls have melted clear off the console. The ship itself seems to be mostly intact from a structural standpoint, besides the apparent fact that none of the auxiliary functions appear to be online.

Peter groans and sits up. “So I guess that went about as well as could have been expected,” he says, shaking his head. He squints at Johnny. “You okay? You took in a lot of heat there.”

Johnny nods, though he feels about as woozy as he usually does after going nova.

“Oh no,” he groans, as he turns his head and spots Doom’s spell on the floor a few feet over. A crack in the ornament is leaking purple gas.

“What,” Peter says, looking over and wincing. “Oh no.”

Something hits the outside of the ship, rattling it like a tin can.

They both jump up immediately, distracted for the moment. “Shields are down,” Peter says. “We’re vulnerable to impact from space debris.”

A creaking noise echoes from above, warning them a split second before a light fixture comes loose, spraying sparks. It misses Johnny and hits an astonished Peter.

They both stare at the smoking chunk of metal for a few seconds.

“Shit.” Peter frowns at the debris, rubbing his shoulder. “Quick, hit me.”

“What?” says Johnny. “Did you smack your head on something?”

Peter looks from the hole above them to the fixture on the ground. “No, seriously, just –” Johnny kicks his shin, “– ow!”

They stare at each other for a second, both momentarily surprised.

“I think my spider-sense is gone.”

“Just what we need right now,” Johnny groans.

 

* * *

 

By the third morning of their space break-down, Peter and Johnny have isolated the problem to the engine.

“Figure out what this part is, would you?” Johnny tosses a burned out chunk of metal out at Peter, who has a diagram of ship parts projected in front of him.

“I don’t think they indexed this manual for unrecognizable lumps of iron,” grumbles Peter. His fingers fly across the specs though. “Could be part of the energy conversion matrix.”

Suddenly, the ship begins to make a sound like a dying duck.

Johnny attacks the controls, trying to identify the source.

“I think we’re being hailed,” says Peter, swiping through several screens on the virtual display in front of him. He manages to bring the call up on the main communications projector.

An alien appears on the screen. She’s feminine looking, with deep blue scales, a flat slitted nose like a snake, and green tentacles pulled back from her face like a ponytail. She makes a sound like a gargle.

“The translator!” Johnny hisses.

Peter adjusts the communications settings. There’s a shrill whistle and then static and then a low voice cuts through.

“-tapā'īṁ ēka samasyā cha–“

He hits a couple more buttons. “No, no, no…”

“-Saro est nomen meum, hospes honorem-“

“How do you work?!” Peter raps hard on the console, leaving a print of his hand in the metal. It creaks and sparks and makes a whirring noise.

“- my warmest welcome to you, travelers. I’m quite sorry to disturb your journey, but there is a large aperture in the hull of your spacecraft leaking solar radiation.”

“We know,” says Peter. “Our ship broke down a couple days ago. Can you help us?”

Her tentacles wave happily. “Oh, how terrible for you. I can of course offer assistance. There is an outpost on an asteroid in the star system over with an excellent mechanical engineer, but...” she trails off and her eyes turn down.

“But what?” asks Peter, warily.

“Well," she says doubtfully, "It’s not what I would call a reputable place."

Johnny laughs in spite of himself. “Are they ever?” Aside, to Peter, he says, “No one in the history of the universe has ever built anything above board on an asteroid. It’s the space tax dodge equivalent of incorporating in Panama.”

Peter gives him a weird look.

“Is the rest of your crew quite alright?” She makes a concerned warbling noise.

"No crew,” Johnny tells her. “You’re not a space pirate who’s going to kidnap us and hold us for ransom as soon as you get us aboard your ship, are you?" he asks with belated suspicion.

All six of her eyes blink together. "Noooo,” she draws out, puzzled. “Of course not!” She ducks away and comes back to the screen a few moments later holding out a tablet-like device with a lot of indecipherable squiggly marks on it. Apparently the Inhuman translator hasn’t been calibrated for text, because Johnny isn’t able to interpret any of it. “I am an astro-marine biologist. My name is Saro of the clan Nisajjxdgark.”

“Sweet,” says Peter. “Nice to meet you, Saro. Any chance you have a tractor beam on that ship of yours?”

Saro beams.

 

* * *

 

It takes nearly an hour for Johnny and Peter to figure out how to disable the transportation blocks on their ship. Saro waits patiently until they’re able to transport onto her research vessel.

“Should have asked her majesty for a manual,” Peter mutters.

Johnny shoots him a warning look.

He’s been on enough spaceships to know that Saro’s is the space equivalent of a fifteen-year-old pick-up truck: well used and utilitarian. There’s strange equipment everywhere inside, nets and scanning devices and a huge tank filled with an orangish liquid and a dozen fuzzy-looking snake creatures.

“Where exactly are we?” asks Peter, as she starts to set up the tractor beam mechanism.

“Oh this is the Bracx System,” Saro says cheerfully. “Not a lot happens out here, it’s pretty remote. Nice solar winds, if you like to ride.”

“So how did you find us?” asks Johnny.

Her tentacles bob enthusiastically. "I'm writing my thesis on the reproductive cycles of the genus _cephelupogus_. Did you know that your ship’s distress call puts out a signal identical to that of a cephean great indigo shark searching for a mate?"

"I think I can safely say we did not," says Peter.

“What a fascinating coincidence then!” she bubbles. “Oh there we go.” She turns back to the screen and hits a couple buttons. “We are on our way. You know, you never mentioned what you two were doing out here. This is a big ship for two people.” Her eyes widen. “Are you performing the traditional mating ritual of the honeymoon?”

Peter’s sudden coughing fit forces him to the other side of the room. Johnny valiantly ignores his snorts and gives Saro a condensed version of their mission.

After he finishes answering her questions, he wanders over to where Peter is staring out of a portal window, watching comets and asteroids whiz by.

“You know,” says Peter, “This is what I always imagine Fantastic Four adventures to be like.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “What, breaking down in the middle of space?”

“Yes!” Peter says earnestly. “Well, sort of, I mean, not exactly like this, but pretty much, yeah. Getting rescued by friendly alien scientists and jumping dimensions and space outposts of dubious character. It’s amazing, all of the things that you guys get to do. I just wish the rest of the gang was here.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” says Johnny, staring out of the window. He can see thousands of stars from here, maybe millions. Orbiting around one of them, somewhere, his family is out there.

 

* * *

 

Oryx VI is roughly the same size as Manhattan, with an outpost the size of a few city blocks rising under an artificial atmosphere dome near one of the poles. It’s small and ramshackle and most of the buildings look like they were constructed from salvaged spaceship parts and this dimension’s equivalent of duct tape. Saro lands them in a crater outside the main outpost and leads them towards the town.

“Okay, now she’s a little strange, but she can make just about anything run,” she says to them in a low voice as she pushes open the iron wrought door of a tiny shop at the end of a street.

She pokes her head in the doorway. “Zel? I have some humans here, they want to see about repairing the energy conversion matrix on their engine. Can you help them?”

The shop is small, tidy, and sweltering, if the way Peter pushes his sleeves up is any indication. A furnace roars in the back of the shop – Johnny’s kind of place then. A high pitched whine reverberates throughout the space. He looks around but doesn’t immediately see where it’s coming from.

A figure shuffles towards them from near the furnace. She’s reptilian, with orange scales all along her skin, and she’s bundled up in so many layers that she looks nearly spherical. Her tongue flicks out.

“Matrixxx?” She says slowly, drawing out the syllable with a hiss. “Isss posssssible,” she tells them. “But cannot help. Go ssssee Orcle Gorssss on the other sssside of the sssstation.”

Saro’s tentacles flutter indignantly around her head. “That cheat!”

Zel rolls her shoulders like an indifferent orange marshmallow. “Will get the job done.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Saro demands.

Zel shuffles back to the furnace, beckoning them after her. The whining sound increases in volume as they move.

“Where I come from,” she says, “isss very hot. Before eggs are laid, we make our nesssts in the volcanossss there. Here, isss cold.” She points to the flames. “New hatchling. Yaza mussst ssssstay warm. Zel mussst sssstay with Yaza.”

A small tail flickers in the furnace, then burrows back beneath the flames.

“You sssseee. Engine cannot be fixxxed in shop, but I cannot leave. Gorsssss will make do for them.”

Johnny and Saro make similar noises of admiration, huddling close to the furnace. Peter eyes them with incredulity.

“Really, guys? A _tail_?”

Johnny reaches a hand out. “You say she’s cold?” he asks. He flames on a hand and both Saro and Zel jolt in surprise.   “Can I?”

Zel’s eyes narrow in suspicion, but she nods slowly. Johnny sticks his arm into the furnace and pushes the heat, building it into the coals from the bottom up.

Suddenly the whining trails off. A curious red nose pokes out of the newly invigorated coals, followed by two bleary slitted eyes. The hatchling looks like a red scaly kitten.

“Okay. That’s cuter then a tail,” Peter admits, squatting to admire the little alien.

Zel glowers. “Fine. I do your repairssss. You keep her warm while I work. Plus sssseventy-five notesss for the partsssss,” she adds, eying them critically through her slit pupils.

Peter stands up, turning suddenly to Johnny. “Do we have money?!”

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “You have a shiny golden parachute you got less than two weeks ago,” he reminds him. “But I have the Fantastic Four intergalactic credit card.” He waves it in Peter’s face.

“Where have you been keeping that?” Peter asks. “No, never mind, I don’t want to know. Pay the nice alien.”

Johnny stretches out comfortably by the fire as Peter takes their newly acquired engineer back to the ship. The hatchling proves to be an entertaining companion.

She’s batting bits of charcoal at him with her tail when Peter ducks back in. “I got sent back for a couple more parts. Zel says we’re idiots and that we’re lucky the ship didn’t blow up on us, by the way.”

“That sounds about right,” Johnny admits. He tosses one of the bits of charcoal back into the fire and lounges back as Peter starts to look around the tools he’s been sent for.

“You look like you’ve got it pretty cushy,” Peter tries to scowl back at him, but only manages a crooked sort of resignation.

“I think we’re both playing to our strengths here,” he tells him smugly, idly admiring the flex of Peter’s muscles under his shirt as he shoulders a large pipe. Peter makes a rude hand gesture as he ducks back out the door and Johnny blows him a kiss.

When Peter returns several hours later, he’s looking a little more worn down. “Zel’s on her way back. She thinks she made a lot of progress today.” He shivers. “Man, the heat escapes quickly out there once we’re not in direct sunlight.”

“Poor baby,” Johnny purrs, fluttering his eyelashes at him. “I can warm you up.”

Usually Peter deflects somehow when Johnny flirts with him, but to his surprise, he grins lopsidedly and sticks out his hands immediately. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Johnny takes them, draining the cold out of them and letting the heat sink in slowly so that the influx of heat doesn’t shock his blood. It’s strangely intimate, sitting with their hands pressed together, sharing his power.

Finally, Peter flexes his fingers and moves back. “Thanks, Torch. Now I could really use food that hasn’t been dehydrated.”

The station’s dive bar is packed with life forms and smells the way that Johnny imagines a public bathroom at a subway station smells. It also looks exactly like Johnny’s third favorite bar back on Earth, down to the hideous upholstered bar stools.

“This place looks exactly like a place I go to on Earth,” he says.

Peter’s eyebrow quirks at him, bemused. He looks like he’s trying not to breathe.

They shove through a swarming group of aliens whose massive compound eyes are giving Johnny negative zone flashbacks. Since Peter’s in front, he pushes him forward to the bar. “Start a tab for me,” he shouts. “See if they have a…” he tries to remember the bar menu in New York, “…Park Avenue Princess!”

Peter makes a face like he does when he’s not sure if Johnny is being serious or not. Johnny pokes his side incessantly until he relays the order.

He crows in delight when the bartender passes back a lurid pink cocktail with a curly straw.

“Unbelievable,” says Peter, shaking his head.

Johnny slurps from his straw obnoxiously and drags him to the only spot of free space he can see, in the corner of the dance floor. It’s easier to breathe and he feels no small measure of relief in being away from the bug aliens.

“We’re close,” Johnny says confidently. “I can tell.”

A server with ears that drag behind him on the floor brings Peter his food, a mountain of weird blue cubes. Johnny grabs a handful before he can inhale them.

He wriggles an arm around Peter’s waist, curls the hand with the drink around his neck, and begins to spin him in time to the music.

If the music has any sort of rhythm to it, Johnny can’t tell. Peter doesn’t help since he keeps trying to take the lead. Taking advantage of his lack of spider-sense, Johnny hooks a vengeful foot around an ankle and upsets his balance just enough to dip him.

"If you drop me," says Peter, "I will leave you to the tender mercies of that alien over there whose been eying you up for the last half hour. The one who looks like an ox."

Johnny pouts and heaves him back up, overestimating it slightly so that Peter ends up stumbling slightly into his chest, solid warm mass of his shoulders filling his arms for a few short moments.  "You wouldn't," he tells Peter, wetting his lips unconsciously.  "Horns aren't my thing.  And I'm very sensitive.  I bruise easily."

He’s kidding, mostly, but Peter’s eyes flicker to his wrists and his mouth goes dry. Johnny would be lying if he said that late at night, he didn't think about how it would be. Peter, all of his power compacted in that lean lanky body, pinning his wrists above his head, leaving marks.

He expects a solid snappy retort, but Peter is silent, seemingly spaced out, staring at where his hand and Johnny's are joined.

Johnny follows his gaze and his brain fritzes for a moment, wildly imagining what’s going on in Peter's head. He might be thinking of Johnny, of his wrists, circled and ensnared by Peter's strong grip.  Peter would be reluctant to use his strength at first, afraid to mark him up, worried about hurting him the same way that Johnny worries about burning people.

Johnny would have to tell him.  Tell him how much he wanted the ring of his hands around his wrists, the fingerprints on his hips, the bites along his collarbone.  He would lick his lips and tell Peter how good it felt, how he shivers when Peter's mouth turns soothing over his skin, how hard he gets when he wakes up to the scrape of Peter's teeth along the blooms of color.

Or he would, at least, if any of that were real.

Mouth dry, he forces himself to struggle back through the haze of lust to the here and now. Another dancer, a small scaly quadruped with a large snout, bumps into Peter, and the moment is over.

They continue to spin in silence.

Suddenly Peter blinks and his head turns. "Um. Does 'Can't Take My Eyes Off of You' strike you as weird choice of music for an intergalactic space bar?”

Johnny blinks, thrown by the abrupt change of subject.

“That’s a Franklin thing, right?”

Johnny nods, still feeling a little off balance.

“So, cosmic coincidence or interdimensional breadcrumb?" asks Peter.

"No idea," Johnny says.  "Let's ask the bartender."

The bartender is eight feet tall and blue.  When they ask him about the song, he lights up pretty literally.

"It's good stuff, right?” he enthuses. “Bought it off a guy from the Naxian system. Radio wave bootleg. This planet hasn't even invented space travel yet so these guys are totally underground.  Pretty sure they're going to be big though. I have a sense about these things, you know."

"Uh," says Peter, giving Johnny the stink eye as he struggles not to laugh.  "If you say so. Where’s this planet? Naxeen?"

“Naxos,” the bartender corrects him. “It’s a few systems over. Tiny system. Basically undiscovered.”

“Thanks.” Peter pinches his side as they move back away.

"Hipsters," wheezes Johnny as they head back to the ship.  "A universal constant."

“This is why I stay away from Brooklyn,” Peter grumbles. He skids down the slope of a crater and disappears into a cloud of dust, nearly giving Johnny a heart attack. “Looks like that’s where we’ll be heading next.”

The dust particles hang in the air, resisting the artificial gravity, forming their own little nebula between him and Peter. Johnny holds his breath and passes through, following him.

They reach the crest and there, just over the ridge of the crater, is what feels like an entire galaxy. Comets wiz through the night, larger than life, just outside the artificial atmosphere of the biosphere. Another asteroid – Oryx II, Saro pointed out earlier – hangs huge above them.   Its dark surface is dotted with ice and the whole thing sparkles like a thousand diamonds as the ice catches the sinking light of the system’s sun.

Peter looks stunned.

“Nerd,” Johnny leans into him, grinning, feeling impossibly fond. He stops and sits down on the edge of the crater, kicking his legs over the edge and sending a few loose rocks tumbling down into the chasm below. “C’mon, sit. You have somewhere else to be?”

Peter joins him. “How could you possibly ever get used to this?” He waves expressively at the sky.

Johnny shrugs. “You don’t, really. Being around people as weird as the Light Brigade or the Inhumans is pretty distracting though.”

Peter laughs. “I guess it must be.” He huffs.

They’re both silent for a few long minutes. Peter’s thinking so hard Johnny can feel the brainwaves rippling out of his head. He wants to take his hand, wrap an arm around his waist, lean in and press out those wrinkles on his forehead.

Instead he’s silent, waiting for him to speak. “Okay, but –” Peter starts haltingly. “Speaking of.” Johnny hadn’t thought they were speaking of anything, but he nods along. “Tell me, was it – was it weird being with Medusa? You guys have known each other for so long, it must have been weird.” He says it forcefully, like he’s trying to convince – Johnny? Or himself?

Johnny stares at him. “No,” he says, thinking about it, “it was – not weird. I mean, I think we both knew that there was an expiration date, even if I didn’t want to admit it. But we leaned into it because it was familiar. Comforting.”  

When he thinks about how desperately he had needed that in the first few months after the Future Foundation’s disappearance, the feeling is still crushing, threatening to overwhelm him.

He sucks in some air and focuses on Peter. “She’s family. Like –” he bites down on the end of his sentence. _Like you._

He swallows, rough. Peter shivers, full-bodied.

It's cold, recognizable even to Johnny, who doesn’t really feel it. The artificial atmosphere doesn't completely keep out the chill of space. Johnny ratchets up his body temperature so that the air around them heats up a few degrees and his skin steams a little. 

“I never told you what MJ said to me when I told her I was leaving with you. "

Johnny turns his head to look at Peter, who is looking up at the sky again. The stars are huge and innumerable out here, but Johnny’s seen all that before. Peter’s expression, soft and wondrous, seems more rare.

"Uh," he clears his throat, "no."

Peter swallows. Johnny finds it hard to look away from the line of his throat, the way his Adam’s apple bobs. "She told me that in all the time she's known me, she'd never seen me do what I did - what I'm doing now.  Give it all up for someone."

Somehow, he’s pressed in closer. His eyelashes are so long.  Johnny hadn't thought that there was anything he didn't known about Peter Parker. He can read the pitch of his voice and the way his fingers curl and release when he gets emotional. He knows that there are thirty-four freckles scattered across his nose and cheekbones. But there they are, inches from Johnny’s face, sweeping across his cheeks.

“You’re still Spider-Man,” he makes himself say. “Not being on Earth doesn’t change that.”

Peter leans in. “No.” He bites his lip, hesitating. “But I kind of think she was right anyway.”

The first press of his lips is so soft that it takes several seconds for Johnny’s brain to respond.

A knot that Johnny hadn't realized was twisted up in his chest loosens and falls away and then he’s kissing back, wrapping his hand around to clutch at his shoulder like he can keep him here and laughing giddily into his mouth, _exactly_ like this forever.

Peter’s hands scramble for purchase, hovering uncertainly over his hips, skating over his skin. Johnny burns for his touch.

When his fingers dip under the hem of his shirt, Johnny makes a noise, fisting his hand in the fabric at the small of Peter’s back.

Johnny runs his tongue over his bottom lip and feels his mouth, spit slick and swollen. Peter's is no better, all pink and bitten. Johnny wants to lick into that mouth, press him back into the ground.

“Ship.” He breaks away, breathing heavily. Steam curls out his mouth.

Peter is flushed, dazed. “What?”

Johnny’s push against his shoulders are more than slightly hindered by the way he can’t convince the fingers of his other hand to loosen their grip on Peter’s beltloops.

He tries again. “Ship. _Bed_.”

Peter must get it, because in a moment he’s up and pulling Johnny with him.

They stumble back to the ship.

 

* * *

 

Johnny wakes up when Peter crawls back under the covers. He grumbles and opens his eyes, squinting with some confusion at Peter’s flushed nose and cheeks.

Peter presses his hands against Johnny’s chest, sighing in contentment.

“Why are you so cold?” asks Johnny suspiciously.

“Woke up. Couldn’t go back to sleep.” Peter says. “The vigilante lifestyle really wreaks havoc on your REM cycle.” He wiggles his fingers. Johnny grumbles, but catches his hands and cranks up the heat as Peter continues to talk. “Took a walk. Saw Zel – she says the ship should be finished in a few hours, by the way. Saro is looking after the kid while we ‘perform the mating rituals of our species’” He can’t do the finger quotes because Johnny is gripping his hands, so he waggles his eyebrows instead.

Johnny flops back against his pillow, taking Peter’s hands – and by extension, Peter – with him.

“You could have woken me up,” he says, displeased, “if you couldn’t sleep.”

“Is that so,” hums Peter, pinning him with his hips. He scrapes his teeth lightly down the line of Johnny’s jaw, then nips at his collarbone. “And how would you have helped?”

He pulls back from Johnny’s chest, grinning down at him suggestively.

Johnny takes that as a challenge.

 

* * *

 

Zel has the ship finished by late light – what passes for mid-afternoon on this station.

“No more sstarsssss,” she hisses at them, after explaining the repairs that she’s made to the engine. “Ssstandard temperature ranges only.”

“Scouts honor,” Peter promises.

Johnny reluctantly pulls away from the furnace. “Be good,” he tells the hatchling. “Stay warm.”

“Thanks again,” he says to Saro, when they get back to their ships. “If it wasn’t for you, we’d still be in space limbo, leaking radiation and sending out shark signals.”

She beams. “It was no trouble, Jonathan of Clan Storm.”

“Good luck with your thesis!” Peter waves as they board the ship.

Then they're off again.  Naxos turns out to be a small green-spotted planet stuck in some sort of dual rotation orbit with its sun.  It makes trying to approach the planet difficult, to say the least.

"If we get dragged out of orbit one more time," he grumbles, jerking the ship away so they don't fly into the sun for the fourth time.  Peter seems unfazed.  Since he can't pilot and also can't do anything to stop the ship if they get sucked into the sun, he's been mostly useless for the past several hours.

Characteristically, that has not stopped him from being vocally involved.  Johnny is actually-on-purpose going to fly them into the sun if this continues for much longer.

“Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo…”

"I regret so much about meeting you," Johnny groans, letting his head fall on the console with a thump.

“Do you really though?” Peter leans over, smirking, and kisses him.

Okay, so some of the distractions are tolerable.

“Mmm.” Johnny leans up into him, fingers tangling in his hair. “The most regret.”

After several minutes, he pulls back. “Hey. We should –“

“Yes,” says Peter, making to pull him up.

“No. I mean. If I ask to talk about this, are you going to freak out on me?”

“Uh.” Peter’s gaze shifts away. “Almost certainly.”

Johnny sighs. Peter leans in again, apologetic.

One of the sensors makes a shrill noise and Peter jerks, biting down on Johnny’s lip.

Johnny swears, tasting blood. Peter grips his shoulder. "Sorry! Sorry! I think there's actually something happening out there!"  He leans into the front projection screen.  Johnny raises his head, then jerks to the front of his seat, scrambling for the controls.

"Solar flare!"  Across the screen, the surface of the sun is pulsating, expanding.  Johnny feels the heat from the solar winds moving their way.  "I can't absorb it without the heat passing through the ship. Zel said we couldn’t handle much more extreme temperatures!”

Peter’s beside him, scanning the area for cover. “There! That moon.”

“That’s not a moon,” Johnny objects, “It’s a rock.”

“Not really the time here, Torch!” Peter yells.

Johnny hits the thrusters, aiming for the dark side.

“Too fast!” Peter yells as they approach the rock at breakneck speed. “Too fast!!   I can’t look.” He flings both of his hands over his eyes.

“NO BACKSEAT PILOTING,” Johnny shouts as they hurtle toward the surface. “I’ve totally got this.” He pulls up and the ship groans and flips bow over stern, resulting in a horrible lurch as the anti-grav stabilizers kick in belatedly.

They touch down gently and Johnny hits the doors without thinking about it so that he can stumble out and hurl. The gravity change hits him hard and he trips and turns a sort of flip and ends up staring at the very familiar faces of the beings who were apparently already here on this moon.

“Did you bring me something to eat?”

The man bearing down on him, teeth bared predatorily, is maybe the last person Johnny would expect to see halfway across the galaxy and in an alternate dimension: noted Fantastic Four adversary Owen Reece, the Molecule Man.

Johnny gapes, not just at Reece, but at the other two forms who suddenly appear behind him.

"Oh boy," says Peter.

“Really,” says Dragon Man, adjusting his glasses across his purple snout and staring at them severely. Turg floats in his bell jar above his shoulder. “It’s about time you got here.

 

* * *

 

Johnny flames on immediately. It might be reactionary, but the Molecule Man was definitely an unhinged supervillain the last time they met, so it seems like a pretty justified reaction.

“Where are they?!” he shouts, lunging forward.

Dragon Man steps back in alarm. Reece seems unfazed.

“Did you bring me something to eat?” he asks again.

Peter makes a disbelieving noise. The Molecule Man’s eyes slide to him, like he’s seeing him there for the first time.

"Hello again. Where is the other Spider-Person?" Reece asks, an idle thread of curiosity in his voice.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Peter tells him. “There are a lot of us now.”

Johnny flames off his head and crosses his arms to glare between Dragon Man and Turg. “Where the hell is everyone?”

Dragon Man fiddles nervously with his glasses. “I’m afraid that’s a bit of a long story.

"Start at the beginning," Peter says.

 

* * *

 

Owen Reece tells them all about how all of the dimensions ended and the multiverse was destroyed. How the pieces were salvaged and mashed together to create the Battleworld, about Emperor God Doom and the Raft and how everything fell apart.

And then, how it all came together again, and what came after.

It’s a weird experience, being told second-hand about an experience they apparently lived through. The Molecule Man is not exactly a reliable source, but Turg and Dragon Man are, so when they explain about how they died in the incursion, how they lived and were ruled under Emperor God Doom’s iron claw, Johnny believes them. Harder is understanding how the Battleworld worked. How Peter and Reed and the rest of the Raft showed up and dismantled all that was left of reality.

It’s only slightly crazier than anything else that’s ever happened in their lives.

"Can we skip ahead to the part where you  _lost my family_ ," Johnny interrupts, when the story drifts off into the particulars of how they began to rebuild the multiverse.

The Molecule Man's mouth doesn't move, but his eyes manage to convey a frown that Johnny finds unsettling.

"Very well.  Several months ago, the children were studying plot archetypes – creation myths, Aarne Thompson motifs and the like.  We had been working on new universes for quite a while at this point, but it hadn't quite occurred to anyone that the Richards boy's powers are ultimately terracentric.  The more universes we built between ourselves and our Earth, the greater the drain on his power."  He sighs.  "We were working on stabilizing the gravitational distortions on this moon when I felt a disturbance on the surface of the planet. Though we have no specific knowledge of what happened, we surmised that he expended too much power the backlash resulted in the destabilization of reality on the planet and in this dimension.  We have been stranded here ever since, trying to produce a ship able to travel at warp speeds. I really have no idea what happen to the others, although I would imagine that at least some of them would have survived the initial reaction."

He pauses here, thoughtful. "The boy himself is certainly alive, though in what state I am uncertain."

“ _Uncertain?_!” Johnny's temper flames up.  "That's  _it_?  You don't know?!"

"You have reality warping powers." Peter points out. 

The Molecule Man appears to examine something on his hand.  "My power has been dispersed as I have aided in rebuilding the multiverse," he sniffs.  "It appears that it is no longer a match for the Richards boy. Something in this universe is absorbing dimensional energy, including that of myself, and I suspect that he is the source.  Now, whether he is doing it consciously or unconsciously is an interesting question.  I suspect -"

“That’s where my spider-sense went,” hisses Peter, poking Johnny unnecessarily in the side.

“Great,” growls Johnny, stomping with extreme prejudice back into their ship. He busies himself with finding some dehydrated protein bars for Reece since he apparently hasn’t eaten since arriving on this rock. He flings things out of the lockbox that serves as a pantry with frustrated recklessness.

“Hey.” Peter catches one of his hands and smooths the tips of his gloves over Johnny’s knuckles, soothing. “Talk to me, Torch.”

Johnny clenches his fists tightly.  "I'm glad I don't remember," he confesses.  He has no desire to. He thinks about what Reece had just told them about Franklin blasting Ben into pieces and shudders.

Peter is watching him with something like concern, but when Johnny meets his gaze he forces a grin. "Oh, sure, but when I erase your memory it's all, 'how could you do this, Spider-Man, I thought you trusted us Spider-Man."

Johnny's answering stare is quelling.  "Sounds like you dodged the secret identity bullet this time as well." Some bitterness leeches into his voice.

Peter frowns.  "You're angry." He reaches, soft, for Johnny’s wrist and Johnny lets him take it.

Johnny looks away.  "Not at you," he mumbles.  "I just - all this time, I’ve thought that they were out there somewhere, lost or in trouble or, or worse.  But everyone else – you and Jen – were right. They chose it.  They chose to leave." They chose to leave  _me_ , are the words that he doesn't say, but he trusts that Peter knows him well enough to hear them anyway.

"We don’t know that," Peter says, placing one gloved hand gently over Johnny's.  "Sue and Reed make the best choices for the kids, always. You know that. And they've been reaching out to you from across space.  From across  _universes_.  That's not nothing."

Johnny squeezes his hand and leans in, angling for a kiss, but is interrupted by Turg speeding over.

“Must come,” he says.

Peter and Johnny race after him, skidding to a halt when they reach the bridge and see the strange scene there.

The Molecule Man is standing over Valeria’s stuffed mouse, looking absolutely deranged. It look like he ripped open the stomach of the toy with his teeth. Cotton stuffing is falling out from his mouth and onto the floor like he’s _Toy Story’s_ Hannibal Lector.

Then Johnny sees what’s inside the gutted stuffed animal.

It’s a small device, no bigger than a cell phone, all wrapped up in wires. Right in the center, the only control at all that Johnny can see, is a big blue button. Peter shouts a warning, but the Molecule Man has already pressed it.

Everything fades to white.

 

* * *

 

They don’t die, but it takes Johnny a minute to realize that since they appear on the surface of a planet that looks shockingly similar to how Johnny fears the afterlife would be.

“They are here,” Reece says immediately. “I can sense the boy.” He’s still trailing cotton from the corner of his mouth.

If Johnny were designing a planet, his first order of business would be to make it nothing like this one. They’ve landed in an arid stretch of nothingness. It's completely colorless and everything of substance seems to dissolve into pale mist a few feet beyond their sight.

"What an interesting design choice," muses Dragon Man, squinting over his glasses at the mist.

“This is exactly the opposite of interesting,” says Johnny. He kicks at the ground, which is devoid of either artificial smoothness or meaningful texture. It reminds him of a spackled ceiling, and is just as exciting.

"We are in a negative space," says Reece unexpectedly. "Whatever backlash happened must have occurred before the design for this planet could be fully realized. Perhaps the Human Torch can indulge us in seeing if the rest of the area is as unformed as this part.

Johnny does a wide loop, then follows his own flame trail back to the ship before it can dissipate into the mist.

"So bad news - there’s a lot of this ‘negative space’ out there. Looks like we landed right in the middle of it. Better news though is that it looks like there's a mountain range that way," he waves a hand off into the mist. "And a forest in the other direction."

"Alright!" Peter rubs his hands together. "You guys head that way into the creepy mist and we'll go this way. Meet back here in three hours."

"Spider-Man, I really must protest," says Dragon Man. "I hypothesize that it will be quite difficult to find our way back to this spot if conditions remain as they are."

Owen Reece just seems bored. Even though he knows that the Molecule Man has so far been honest with them, Johnny can't quite bring himself to trust the guy.  There's something flat about his affect, like he couldn't care less about all of this, like he has no stake in the outcome.  It's disconcerting and Johnny doesn't like it. "I believe the Human Torch is quite capable of sending up a flare if there are any difficulties," he says. His voice is flat and dry. 

Johnny scowls, wanting to disagree with him on principle.

"Excellent," says Turg. "Let us not waste time in finding my sister and brothers and our other companions of the future."

Reluctantly, Dragon Man follows the other two off into the mist.

"Alone at last, Mr. Storm." Johnny can't see them, but he would bet every pair of boots that he owns that Peter is waggling his eyebrows behind the mask.

Johnny narrows his eyes at him. "Let's find my family before a supposedly reformed supervillain does it first."

"They say time takes the spark out of every relationship," Peter complains as they start into the mist. "No one ever told me what happens when one of the people in the relationship actually sparks.

Johnny throws him a sharp glance. He could ask Peter about his choice of words, but he’s pretty sure that he would just deflect. Trying to get Peter Parker to talk about his feelings before he's ready to is like trying to trap smoke.

"That was bad and you should feel bad," he complains instead.

"This audience sucks," says Peter, right before he almost walks into a tree.

"Yarghhg!" He stumbles back, but rights himself nearly immediately. "Tree!"

"Nice observation," Johnny says. "I can see why they made you an Avenger."

Peter presses his gloves lovingly up against the bark. "He doesn’t appreciate you like you deserve,” he tells it. “But I – oh, another one!”

There are several trees actually distinguishable through the fog now. As they walk on, the mist seems to lessen, allowing a sparsely wooded area to become discernable. Reality starts to take form. There's a real sky above them, even if it's an unsettling shade of violet. There’s a shrub and a tree root and real pine needles are on the ground. Johnny could cry, but he joyfully picks one up and sets in on fire instead.

"Does this tree look familiar to you?" Peter scratches his head fifteen minutes later.

"I thought you were marking the trees with webbing so that we wouldn't get lost," Johnny groans.

"I am!" Peter circles the tree suspiciously. "It's not that. Does this look a little like Central Park to you?"

"Uh, no?" Johnny waves a hand. "This is a forest. There's no asphalt or morons with Frisbees. All trees look the same, Pete, come on."

"No, I'm pretty sure that-"

He's interrupted by a crash.

Several mounted horses burst into the clearing. On their backs are knights in full armor. There's something unsettling about them, and after a moment, Johnny realizes that he can't see their eyes underneath their helmets.

For a moment, no one speaks. Then Peter goes for it. "Hail thee noble warriors. How cometh you to be in this, uh, fine glade."

Johnny would throw something at him if anything were in reach.

"You just let me handle this," Peter stage-whispers to him confidently.

"You think I can't take a handful of would-be LARP-ers?" Johnny hisses back.

There's a warning whistling sound before a sword arcs across the space where his ear just was. Johnny finds himself flat on the ground with Spider-Man’s masked face just inches above him.

"Sorry, what was that? Oh, right, _thanks, Spider-Man_ for making sure I still have a head." He mimics a reassuring voice. "No problem, Torch, I have it on good authority that you're quite attached to your hair these days-"

His monologue is thankfully interrupted by a warhorse trying to trample him. They both scramble to their feet.

"Is this a principle thing?" Peter asks one of the knights as he punches him in his armored face. "Are we trespassing? _Why can't we be friends_."

The knight doesn't respond, except to try to whack him with a sword once again.

Actually, none of the knights have made so much as a sound. Johnny lifts one up and flies him up to the top of a tree and he doesn't so much as holler.

He's getting ready to pluck another one off of his horse when he feels his body seize.

Green light envelopes him. In an instant, he can't move, can't look to see what's happening to Peter, can't even breathe. The knights in his field of vision are definitely moving though and Johnny is forced to wait in total stillness for the blow that's about to come.

Nothing happens though. The knights seem disoriented. Their helmets twist back and forth as they seem to search for some sort of sign.

He still can't breathe. His lungs feel like they're - well, not on fire, fire he could handle - being pressed in a vice.

As his vision begins to fade, the knights ride away.

Suddenly, he is released. He falls, wheezing, to the ground, grasping wildly for Peter, who, _there_ , is doing the same exact thing.

From across the field, there's a yell.

Johnny groans as he struggles to his feet. He's not sure he can handle another fight, although Peter seems to be doing a little better.

"Uncle Johnny!" 

For a split second he can only stare at the girl in the tree, sure that she must be a figment of his imagination.  He’s hallucinating from lack of oxygen, or he hit his head during the fight.  But then she wiggles down to a lower branch and that expression of precocious calculation that flickers across her face as she looks at the distance between the branch she's standing on and the ground is too real for him to be imagining it.

"Val!" Johnny shouts, almost falling on his face in his rush to get to her.

"You made it!" She springs out of the tree and he just catches her, hugging her tightly and spinning around.  She looks a little older, a lot taller, and her Future Foundation uniform has definitely seen cleaner days.  Johnny squeezes her against his chest, pressing his face into her tiny shoulder.

"I missed you, sweet pea."

Peter's making grabby hands so Johnny reluctantly passes Valeria to him for more hugs.

"Hey, kiddo."

Valeria touches his face through the mask.  "I forgot you," she confesses.  "I didn't mean to, but - you came with the other Spider-Man and I didn't know who you were."  Her voice sounds suspiciously wobbly.

"Uh," says Peter, tilting his head at Johnny over her shoulder. He hesitates for a long moment before shifting her into one arm and reaching his hand up. Before Johnny realizes what he’s doing, he’s tugging the mask off. "Hey, Val,” he repeats, voice suspiciously thick. “It’s okay. It’s really good to see you. We don't really remember anything that happened on the - what did Reece call it?"

"Battleworld," Val's voice is a little muffled since her face is still shoved into Peter's shoulder.  She must get a mouthful of spandex because she pulls her head away and makes a face, sticking her tongue out.  Peter squeezes her again and then hands her back to Johnny, who will probably never let her out of his sight again.

Valeria must feel similarly, or else she's developed a much higher tolerance for being carried over the last year, because she's unusually content to keep her arms hugged around his neck, burrowed into his side.

"Where's Uncle Ben?" she asks finally, squinting behind them like the big rocky jerk might lumber out of the trees.

Johnny clears his throat.  "It’s. Kind of a long story. He, uh, joined the Guardians of the Galaxy.  When you guys disappeared.  We tried to reach him before we headed out here but uh, no luck."

Valeria frowns at him like she knows he's not telling her all of it, so he changes the subject.

"Where's everyone else?"

"They're okay," Valeria tells them.  "But it’s complicated. Franklin lost control of his powers and they rebounded back and now he’s in a coma and Mom is protecting him up at the castle.  Some of the others were captured by the flatfaces – those knights that you were fighting – but they’re all fine."

She wiggles out of his arms and onto the ground. Johnny is surprised to realize that she comes up to his waist now. She’s grown two or three inches since he’s last seen her.

“Yeah,” says Peter, “What was up with those knights?”

"The flatfaces? That’s what Mik and Korr named them," Valeria explains as they start to walk. "They were supposed to be some of the inhabitants of this planet but they weren’t completely formed when the collapse happened so they weren’t finished.  If they capture you, they put you in the dungeon up at the castle."  She tilts her head, considering.  "We don’t think they have much in the way of higher critical function, but we haven’t been able to test that theory comprehensively. We do know that while they can't see or smell or speak, but they have very sensitive auditory capacity."

"That's why they left after we were frozen," Peter says.

 "Sorry about that," says Valeria. They both turn to look at her. She wiggles her fingers and small tendrils of green light curl out into the air.

"Woah," says Peter, unnecessarily. “That’s new.”

"Ha!" Johnny holds his fist out for Valeria to bump.  "You are totally going to wig your dad out when he sees that."

She shrugs, going for nonchalant, but looks pleased.

“We have to meet the others back at the ship,” says Peter. “We should get moving. You, start talking kiddo. Tell us everything.”

As they wait at the ship for the other three to come back, Valeria explains. "When Franklin’s powers backlashed, this entire planet became extremely unstable. By our best estimates, we've actually only got a couple weeks left until the whole thing falls apart. If you didn't show up soon, we were going to have to move on to Operation Sunnydale.”

“What’s that? And who is ‘we’?” Peter asks.

Instead of answering, Valeria jumps. “That reminds me.” She cups her hands together and whispers into them. A green light pulses between her fingers and when she opens her hands, a glowing green dragonfly speeds off into the mist. “That’ll get Bentley,” she tells them.

“How did you end up with magic?” Johnny asks.

Valeria shakes her head. “It’s not really magic. There’s raw reality power everywhere around here. It’s like pollen; it gets all over. You can use it to do some little things without disturbing the equilibrium of the planet too much.

“Like freezing us?” Peter says.

She winces a little. “That was probably pushing the limit a little,” she admits. “But there are virtually no usable natural resources here, so we’re running pretty low on tech.”

Her face brightens. “Did you guys bring anything? Do you have a laser cannon?”

“No laser cannon,” Peter says. “Right?” He turns to Johnny. “The Inhumans didn’t give us a laser cannon, right?

“Rats.” She plops down on the ground, chin in her hands, looking dejected.

Peter’s knee bounces up and down nervously. "The others should be back by now."

"Do you think the, uh, flatfaces might have caught them?" Johnny asks Val.

Her face scrunches up. "Maybe. The mountains are less hostile territory but Dragon Man isn't exactly programmed for stealth."

"There are three of them!" says Peter.

"Dragon Man is a pacifist and Turg is a floating head," Johnny points out. 

Peter rubs his forehead. "And Reece's powers are shot. Okay, it's possible we should have switched up the groups more evenly.”

“We can give them a few more minutes before jumping to any wild – ahhhh what is that?!” Johnny yelps as a shadow passes over them.

There’s a _whoosh_ and then a loud screech from somewhere in the mist above.

Val has an expression of long-suffering annoyance on her face as she looks up. “It’s just-“

A familiar holler interrupts her explanation.

“Halt, interlopers! Surrender or perish!”

A sword drops down and thuds in the ground two feet from Johnny. Valeria gets a pinched look on her face. “Don’t _do_ that,” she says, annoyed.

“Don’t _do_ that.” Bentley-23 swoops into sight on the back of a green pterodactyl - Adolf, the Impossible Boy, Johnny realizes when he shapeshifts back into his usual form and glances warily between them. Bentley slides to the ground and sticks his tongue out at Val before looking at them. “Spider-Man? What are _you_ doing here?”

Peter brings his gloved hand up to his face and looks at it like he’s confused. “Oh no! What _am_ I doing here? How did I get here? Who are you people?”

Johnny flicks a spark at him and he jumps away with a yelp, but keeps on going.

“Foul! No fair without my spider-sense!”

Valeria pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, long suffering. “Is this really necessary?” she demands.

“It’s like you’ve never met him,” Johnny says to her. “There is literally no way to stop it.”

“Wait!” says Peter. “I can fast-forward to the end.” He throws up his hands dramatically. “ -and the real question is ‘why are any of us here?’ What is our purpose? How can any of us really know?” He ends with a bow.

There’s a pause. “Anyway,” says Johnny.

Val scowls at Bentley. “Thanks a lot. Where are the others? Didn’t you bring them?”

“You didn’t say to,” he shrugs. “We were close by investigating some equilibrium disturbances so it was faster to come straight here.”

She makes a face at him. “Fine. Adolf, can you go bring Onome and Artie here?”

He nods and flies away again.

Valeria begins rooting around in her bag. Johnny sets his hand on her shoulders right as she pulls out a battered notebook. “Hey, Val, it’s okay, take a breather.”

She turns around, scowling deeply at him. “It’s not! We –“

Suddenly the world begins to rumble.

“Great,” Bentley says, “What did you guys _do_?”

“I had to drive some flatfaces away earlier,” Valeria shouts, mostly because Johnny has scooped her up and yanked her away from the giant crack that just split the earth several feet in front of them. On the other side of the widening split, Peter shoots out a web and sticks Bentley in the back, interrupting his shouts as the ground continues to crumble beneath them.

“We should go back to the forest,” says Val. “It’s usually more stable there.”

She releases another glowing dragonfly like she did earlier, wincing when the ground gives another ominous tremble. The chasm shudders, then belches up several hundred tennis balls.

“Ouch,” Bentley gives Val the stink eye when one hits him in the head. “Great. That’s the second earthquake since midday.”

“Don’t,” Val tells him.

“They should know!” Bentley says.

“Know what?” Peter looks from one kid to the other.

Val sighs. "Franklin’s unconscious mind is holding this world together using a lot of power that he’s absorbing from other parts of this dimension – power that isn’t his. When he wakes up, if he wakes up, it all goes back where it belongs. If we wake him up and he doesn't stabilize reality, this whole world - and possibly the whole dimension - probably collapses.  If we wake him up and he uses his power to stabilize reality, he probably dies."

"If he doesn't wake up," adds Bentley, "reality collapses anyway.  It's obvious that from a Utilitarian perspective, we have to wake him up and he has to stabilize reality."

"We still have time," Valeria sets her jaw.

"There have been two reality events in the last twelve hours," Bentley argues.  He scowls and points at Peter and Johnny. "Their arrival has obviously added to the destabilization and advanced the timeline."

"The events are random! The odds of multiple ones happening on the same day by chance is over ten percent -"

Johnny's head is spinning.  "Okay, stop," he tells them.  "We're not sacrificing Franklin.  And when we get back to Earth, no more ethics lessons with Jen."

Valeria is digging through her bag again, looking single-mindedly furious.

"Did you guys bring Tera?" She pauses to glance up expectantly at Peter and Johnny.

"Who?"

"She wants her dumb mouse," Bentley smirks.  Val pushes him.  "Ow!!"

"She's not dumb!”

“Aw,” says Peter. “You name her after the Earth? You _missed_ us."

Valeria, midway through trying to pinch Bentley through his jerkin, pauses to scowl at them.  "No! Her name is Valentina Tereshkova, but I obviously couldn't call her _Val_!"

"Obviously." Johnny smirks at Peter and scoops Val up since she's eying Bentley's shins with murderous intent.  Her arms hug around his neck and he squeezes her tightly and drops a sloppy kiss somewhere between her ear and her hair.  "She’s back at the ship. She might need some time at the, ah, stuffed animal hospital before you can have her back.” He tries to hold back a grimace. “How about you tell us about Valentina Tereshkova, kiddo."

"First woman in space," Bentley answers, cutting in before Valeria has a chance to speak. " _Boring_."

"He asked me!" Valeria says loudly, right by Johnny's ear.  "And it's not _boring_." Peter's face is turned towards him, which is why he's the one to catch Johnny's wince.

"Your _face_ is boring," Bentley shoots back.

"Okay, let's keep it down.  I, for one, would like to make it off this planet without having my body and dignity crushed by a troop of renfair enthusiasts or a pancake falling out of the sky," Peter says.  "Sounds to me like you guys have been cooped up here a little too long,"

Bentley kicks a root. "Yeah and whose fault is that? You guys took  _forever_."

Peter makes a sad series of flailing defensive gestures. "We broke down and then we had space hop through half the galaxy!! Our directions were _not_ clear."

Valeria swivels her head, staring at them accusingly. "What are you talking about? I programmed our location  _exactly_. All you had to do was press the blue button."

Peter and Johnny look at each other. 

"Didn't you read my letter? There were instructions!" Valeria sounds dismayed. 

"Um," says Johnny, when it becomes clear that Peter is not going to bail him out of this one, "There was an accident.  With Thor.  Definitely not our fault!"

"How'd you get here then?" Bentley asks, suspicious written across his face.

"It was sort of a...space...reality trail of breadcrumbs,” Johnny tries to explain. “Franklin’s powers were bleeding into our universe and we followed their trail –“

He trails off in surprise as both small heads swivel towards him. "Franklin's powers were altering things on Earth?" Valeria asks. Johnny's never seen such an intense expression on her face and he realizes again how much older she looks.

"Yes?"

Bentley and Valeria's faces turn towards each other in unnerving sync.

"If he was -"

"Obviously! And that means if we -"

"Only if we calculate-”

“Of course!"

"Feel free to explain whenever," says Peter.

Val waves her hands in excitement. "If Franklin’s sphere of influence extended all the way back to our Earth of origin, that changes the calculations for how much energy his subconscious is using to stabilize the planet."

“I’m thinking Operation X.” Bentley rubs his hands together looking gleeful. 

“We’ll need to break out the Molecule Man,” says Val, flipping through the pages of her notebook until she finds the one she’s looking for. Johnny can see that the whole journal is filled with scrawled notes and diagrams, drawings of solar systems and complex equations. He squeezes her shoulder. She glances up at him for a split second and then turns to Peter. “And you’ll have to do Ben’s role.”

"I'm in," says Peter. "As long as I don't have to wear the shorts."

“Afraid you can’t pull them off?” Johnny grins at him.

Valeria is looking between them with an expression of open curiosity.

Peter clears his throat. "I, uh, have a strict no-shorts policy. No disrespect to Ben though.”

“Heads up!” Bentley yells suddenly. They all freeze.

Val steps back slowly, pulling Peter and Johnny back with her. A strange cloud is floating across the clearing. It’s dusty and pale and the air around it shimmers like a heat mirage. Every few seconds, he thinks he sees something random in it, like a shoe or a tea cozy or the face of the morning barista at the coffee shop around the corner that Johnny likes to go to back on Earth.

“What is that?” Peter asks.

“It’s a pocket of free-floating energy.” Bentley is inching away. “Like reality quicksand.”

"Seriously?" Peter looks interested. “With that much raw dimensional power, if you could harness it…”

“Yeah, that’s what Dad thought too,” Val tells him flatly.

Everyone turns to look at her. “Where is Reed?” asks Peter.

Val purses her lips and doesn’t say anything. Bentley answers instead. “He tried to absorb it, to stabilize the planet and help us get home.”

“What happened?” Johnny asks, stomach clenching.

“It made him a living reality event,” Bentley says.

“He was unstable for days,” Val adds. “He just kept shifting. He would be a rabbit or a gazelle and then he would turn into a loaf of bread or a pot of petunias. No one could go near him.”

“Eventually, as the power wore off, he started to stabilize,” Bentley assures them. “He ended up a frog.”

“He’s with Mom,” Valeria says. “We’re pretty sure that if we can get the dimension stabilized and return all of the excess power to its original sources, he’ll go back to normal.

“How sure?” asks Johnny.

Val makes a face. “Like…eighty-three percent?”

They digest that.  Bentley makes a _ribbit_ sound under his breath and Val kicks him.

“Ow! Anyway,” says Bentley, “we think he was lucky. He still has some of the power of the Beyonders. Anyone else could have been erased from this reality. Maybe every reality.”

Peter and Johnny absorb this silently as the cloud continues to drift away.

“I told you,” Valeria says gravely, “everything here is unstable.”

“And getting worse,” Bentley adds.

They’ve made it back to the forest now.

“There they are!” Bentley jumps up.

Onome is shouting happily at them before Adolf even glides down and Artie waves at them from behind her.

Valeria wastes no time. “Artie, can you show us the current map?” The kids look over it for a few minutes, adjusting areas that have apparently shifted over the course of the last few weeks.

Breaking into the castle is actually easier than Johnny had expected. For one thing, Bentley and Valeria are apparently old pros.

“Vil and Wu get captured all of the time,” Bentley grouses. “There’s a lake down there that they like.”

"Did you even need us here?" asks Peter, after Val gives everyone their marching orders in rapid fashion.

She blinks at him.  "Yes? We don't have a ship to get home."

Peter groans.  "I've been taken in.  Halfway across the multiverse for the world's most dangerous Uber."

Val ignores him.  "Everyone ready? Any last questions? It'll be silence once we breech the perimeter," she reminds them.

Peter salutes her and they head off.

Onome, Bentley and Adolf peel away after a few minutes.

“They’re going to set off some sound traps on the other side of the castle to draw away the flatfaces,” Valeria whispers to them. They’re all speaking in hushed tones as they get closer.

Artie’s map takes them to the entrance of a cave, then through a series of tunnels that gets progressively narrower. Johnny sacrifices a chunk of his uniform and a perfectly good layer of skin trying to wiggle through a space Valeria had slithered past with ease.

Finally they reach a dead end.

It’s actually a huge rock slab that someone has laid across the end of the tunnel. Valeria pokes Peter in the side and points to it.

He makes a bit of a show of warming up, stretching out his joints before he lifts the stone away with ease.

On the other side he’s surprised to find less of a dungeon and more of a large cavern. There’s a bolted door on the opposite side guarded by two knights. All of the Future Foundation is there, chattering with each other around an underground lake where Vil and Wu are splashing around. He notices with relief that Turg, Dragon Man, and Reece are there too. None of them show signs of being worse for wear.

The kids fall silent for a second when they see Val with Johnny and Spider-Man. Kor starts to make a glad sound and his sister elbows him, pointing at the guard, one of whom is tilting his head in their direction, alerted to the change in their conversation.

Before he can do much more than uncross his arms, his fellow guard hits him over the head with a loud clang of his sword, dropping him like a brick. Alex Power raises his visor as he starts towards them, looking relieved. “It’s good to see you,” he tells them. “Things were going to get desperate around here soon.”

“So we’ve heard,” says Peter, jerking a thumb at Val.

The Molecule Man is crouching over the other knight. “We must be quick,” he hisses, straightening up. “Others will have heard.”

"Okay, move it or lose it, gang," Peter starts herding kids into the tunnel. Alex goes first, leading the other kids back into the cave passage.

“Get them as far away as possible,” Johnny tells him. “We’re going on to get Franklin and save the planet.” He grabs the Molecule Man by the back of his shirt. “You’re helping.”

There’s a sound somewhere above them, then the clatter of footsteps.

“Operation X,” Valeria says to Alex, who nods and disappears down the tunnel, FF kids following him like odd ducklings. She’s hanging back.

"Go with Alex," Johnny tells her.

Valeria gets a mulish expression on her face. "I'm going with you to get Franklin.”

There’s a loud boom from a long way off that reverberates through the cavern, shaking the walls around them. Bentley and Onome’s distraction.

“Val, come on.”

The sound of armored boots fades, but the rumbling continues. A few chunks of rock crumble from the ceiling and Peter’s eyes lock on his as they both realize what’s happening at the same time.

“Take cover!” shouts Peter, pushing Dragon Man out of the way just as the tunnel portal collapses over him.

“ _SPIDER-MAN_!”

Everything is chaos. Dust fills the air; Val is shouting; Johnny is shouting; someone on the other side of the huge pile of rock and rubble is shouting – one of the moloids, he thinks.

“We’re okay,” Alex’s voice is muffled through the rock. “Spidey’s okay too, I think. He was hit in the head but there’s not much blood. I can lift this other stuff off of him.”

Footsteps are approaching again, attracted to the din.

Several of the rocks start to glow black as Alex’s powers envelop them, but when they move, the cave’s ceiling creaks ominously. “You guys should go,” Alex says. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Like hell,” Johnny snarls. Val pulls on his arm.

“We must move away from this place,” Reece says.

“I hate you,” Johnny tells him sincerely, gritting his teeth. Then looking at Val, “Looks like you’re coming with after all. Get behind me.”

They duck into a side hall as a small troop of knights comes thundering down the hall, keeping totally still. A couple minutes after they pass, Valeria nods and Johnny lets his breath resume.

Valeria pads silently through the halls as they move upwards through the castle. Johnny can’t ask her how she knows where they’re going, but he has a feeling that this place would have a suspiciously similar layout to Castle Doom if it was decked out in green silk and staffed with doombots.

A wide hallway leads to a great hall. A throne sits empty in the middle. Valeria grimaces and points to a doorway on the other side, where Johnny can see a spiral stairway twists upward.

There’s a sound like a growl and a hulking form steps out into the throne room. A crown sits on his head, the stuffy British kind with the red velvet puff in the center, like he’s some sort of king. Like the knights they’ve seen, he has no face, just a pale wrinkled mask of skin that melts down the front of his head. Unlike the knights, there’s a sharp red mouth embedded in the skin, salivating and gnashing its teeth.

Johnny shudders.

“Indeed,” Reece agrees quietly. Val shushes him.

From a hundred feet away, the king’s head swivels.

“Go!” Johnny hisses, picking Valeria up and shoving her bodily at Reece. As they run to the stairs, he flames on and turns to face the nightmare.

The king isn’t advancing on him though. Instead, his mouth splits into something only just resembling a grin before it opens and lets out an unholy shriek.

Johnny has heard a lot of frightening and debilitating noise come out of supervillains over the years, but this one deserves distinction for the mingled horror and fury of the sound, like a thousand people screaming laid over the sound of a high-speed passenger train wreck.

From outside the hall, Johnny hears the clunk and clatter of an army being brought to attention.

With a snarl, he turns and flies into the stairwell.

Valeria and Reece are halfway up the stair, breathing hard as they climb. Johnny flames off his hands and grabs them both by their collars to fly them the rest of the way.

Well, he grabs Reece by his collar. He holds Val more securely, hooking an elbow around her and carefully keeping her away from his flames.

The doorway at the top of the stairs is blocked by a forcefield. Johnny has never seen a sight so welcome. He touches down on the top step.

“Sue!” he shouts.

“…Johnny?” His sister’s surprised voice floats out of the tower.

“Mom!” Val yells. “Let us in!”

“If I let the forcefield down, I’m not sure I’ll be able to raise it again,” Sue admits to them after a moment. She sounds exhausted.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Val tells her. “We’ve got Mr. Reece here, he’s going to help wake up Franklin.”

A moment later the forcefield is down and the three of them fall into the room.

Somebody grabs his hand tightly and he opens his eyes to see that Sue is kneeling over him, one arm wrapped around Val and the other tightening its grip on his hand. She looks utterly exhausted and he pushes himself up to hug her for real.

“Hi,” she says.

"I'm really mad at you," he mumbles, even as he presses his face into his sister's dirty sweaty hair.  Sue collapses against him blearily. "Why'dya have to leave me behind like that."

“Oh, _Johnny_ ,” she says, pulling back a little and brushing his hair out of his eyes with a sad smile. Her eyes are dark and shadowed. “It wasn’t about you, I promise.” She glances away, to where Franklin is lying unconscious, looking exactly like he had when Wanda had shown Johnny his image months ago. “Did Ben come?”

He glowers and shakes his head.

“You came alone?” Sue asks him, surprised and maybe slightly concerned. For him or for their chances of making it out of this mess, he doesn’t know.

“I could have!” Johnny says defensively. He leans back to glower at her and then relents. “But. I brought Spider-Man.”

Sue doesn’t say anything but she raises an eyebrow.

A frog croaks from beside her.

"Is that really Reed?"

Before Sue can answer, stomping and clattering echo up the stairwell.

The Molecule Man goes to Franklin, pacing around him with far too much indifference in his step to ease Johnny’s reservations.

“What was that thing down there?” he asks.

“He was originally supposed to be this world’s Big Bad,” Valeria shivers. “He went wrong when everything else did,” she explains. “He wants to eat Franklin’s heart so that he can control the forces of the universe.”

He turns to Sue. “And that’s what you’ve been doing all this time? Protecting him?”

She nods.

“…Mom?” Everyone’s heads swivel to Franklin, blinking awake across the room. The Molecule Man has a hand on either side of his temples and the air around them is shining and distorted.

From somewhere down the stairwell, there’s a shriek of fury, like the Nightmare King can sense what has just happened. And maybe he can, but Johnny’s not about to find out what else he has in store for Franklin or the rest of them.

Clenching his fists, he bursts to his feet in a rush of energy and flames on. “I’ll be back,” he promises, flying out the stairwell. He takes out knights like bowling pins on the stairwell, sending them tumbling down the steps with a clamoring racket that can probably be heard from space.

Back at the bottom of the stairwell, full scale chaos has broken out. There are soldiers everywhere, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Alex has made it back up and is pushing knights away from the doors with his powers, but Johnny doesn’t see any of the other kids, thankfully.

He flies overhead, throwing handfuls of flames at the combatants.

Outside, the scene is even worse, if possible. Johnny is relieved to see Peter swinging from the ramparts. “You okay?” he shouts. “How are you feeling?”

“Kind of like a cave fell in on my face,” says Peter, webbing one guy’s sword hand to his helmet. “Did you find Franklin?”

“And Sue,” says Johnny. “The Molecule Man is trying to stabilize things now. He shoots a line of flames, blocking access to the drawbridge.

Knights are still appearing. Johnny wouldn’t be surprised if the planet was just producing them fully formed out of the ground now.

“Can you hold them back for a couple minutes?” he asks. Peter shrugs as he kicks one guy back, sending him clanging into one of his fellows.

“I can do this all day,” he says.

Johnny makes a doubtful face at him as he takes back off. He swoops back towards the tower to see how Reece and Franklin are doing and tumbles through a window. Franklin is sitting up, rubbing his head. Reece is standing in the middle of the tower with his eyes closed as the air ripples all around them.

From below, there’s a rumble that Johnny now recognizes immediately and everything begins to shake. With a cracking groan, the ground splits open and a crack opens in the hillside. The entire castle quakes beneath them. He swoops down, ready to grab Franklin and Val if it shows any sign of crumbling.

Valeria bites her lip. “We’ve destabilized the planet,” she shouts. “The reality event timeline has accelerated. This whole dimension is unraveling.

“I can –“ starts Franklin.

“No!” Sue, Valeria, and the Molecule Man all snap at him in unison. He makes a face.

“I need more time,” Reece grits out.

As if in answer, a long shadow falls across the battlements.  Gut clenching, Johnny takes back off into the air with a burst of flames and then risks looking up, fearing some new horror.

A giant star-shaped hole is opening up in the sky. As he watches, a handful of familiar figures fly out of the chasm.  Nova is first, racing into the sky, whooping, two girls on his heels.  Squinting, he can identify Julie Power and America Chavez. 

A much larger form follows after them, huge and orange and rocky. Ben lands with a thud that shakes the whole battlefield, down to the foundation of the castle. Beside Johnny, Franklin cheers and mouths the words as Ben raises his fists and shouts them – “IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!!!”

“Yes!” Franklin punches the air.

Superheroes are still dropping from the sky. Behind Ben rushes an entire cadre of friends and acquaintances and the cavalry wastes no time before joining the fray - Johnny sees the other Power kids and a full Guardians of the Galaxy roster, plus a couple dozen current and former Avengers. The new heroes are quickly turning the tide of the battle, holding off the fighters until Reece has a handle on things.

Suddenly a burst of light ripples across the violet sky. It spreads out past the castle, past the battlefield. The mists on the horizon start to dissipate and with a great rumble, the fissure in the ground below them starts to seal itself back up.

Across the fields below, many of the knight figures drop their swords and look around in total confusion.

“Well,” comes Reed’s familiar voice from behind them. “I can’t say that that wasn’t uniquely fascinating but I don’t think I’ll be inclined to repeat the experience.”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the soldiers and knights surrender and disperse pretty quickly after the Molecule Man gets the world stabilized. Some of them take off their helmets and touch their new faces in bewilderment. Johnny watches the Power Pack kids instantly swarm their older brother.  Alex laughs, taking his helmet off in a dramatic move that probably looked cooler in his head, hugging Katie and ruffling Jack's hair, letting Julie kiss his cheek.

Beyond them, Franklin is standing by himself, staring at Ben and looking uncertain.

Johnny goes over to him

"Why the long face, kiddo?" He ruffles Franklin's hair, but his nephew doesn't squirm away like he used to.  For a second, Johnny has to ask himself if he ever did or if it's just something he made up trying to keep the memory of his family alive over the course of the last year.

"I," Franklin bites his lip, blinking furiously.  "In the final battle.  I killed him.  I  _killed_  Uncle Ben," he confesses, in a voice so small it hurts Johnny's heart to hear it.

"Hey hey hey. You weren't yourself."  Johnny squats down so that he's more at Franklin's eye level.  "I know that.  Ben knows that. We don't even remember any of it.  You and Owen made it so it didn't happen."

Franklin shakes his head tearfully.  "I remember it," he mumbles, shamefaced, "It did happen."

Suddenly, Johnny has an aching suspicion of why Sue had been inclined to separate the kids from Johnny and Ben and everyone else who had suffered on Doom's twisted torture world.  His heart hurts as he recognizes the guilt that is plain on Franklin's face right now and makes a mental note to see if Peter can talk to him when things settle down some.  That's not a fair thing to put on a kid.

"Hey."  He holds his arms out and Franklin leans into him, snuffling against his shoulder.  Johnny's uniform is going to have snot on it, but whatever.  He has a feeling that he'll be back in blue from now on anyway.  "Trust me, Franklin.  Nothing could ever make Ben love you any less.  He's stuck by me all these years, hasn't he?"

Franklin nods reluctantly into his shirt.

"I think what Ben would like more than anything right now," Johnny says, "Is a hug from his favorite nephew."

Franklin pulls back, sniffling.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

 

* * *

 

Johnny walks Franklin over to Ben and then leaves them alone, with a tactfulness that would impress even Sue.

Peter is chatting with some of the Avengers who showed up and Johnny sidles up and throws an arm around his shoulders.  His expression (well, his mouth) doesn't change, but he leans a little into Johnny's side, relaxing.  Rogue eyes the contact with something like suspicion, raising an eyebrow at Johnny's masterful attempt to appear casual and non-blushing.

"How'd you know we needed help, anyway?" Peter is asking.

America snorts.  "Radio silence for weeks and then your boy here snapchats three things in the last twenty-four hours?”

Everyone turns to look at Johnny, who throws up his arms in the universal expression for  _what did you expect_. 

"You have internet access out here?!" Johnny can't tell if Peter's upset or impressed through the mask. “When did you even have time?”

"It's an interdimensional cell phone.  What good would it do if all it did was make phone calls?" Johnny asks, mostly rhetorically. "Anyway, if I died out here, I wanted Earth to report that my last words were something awesome.” Somehow, Peter's arm has found its way around his waist, warm and sturdy.

"Huh. 'Flame On' ain't good enough since you already used it once?" Ben rumbles.  He claps Johnny on the shoulder.

"Ow," Johnny howls.  "Careful where you shove your giant paws!"

Ben just looks at him. Johnny raises his eyebrows, and he nods, eyes sliding towards where Franklin is racing happily towards the other Foundation kids.  "Yer okay, Flamebrain," he says.

There’s an awkward silence where Johnny doesn’t quite know what to say. He kind of wishes he had a pie or something to throw at Ben’s face to break the tension, but sadly, none materialize. He has to settle for saying, “How did you get here?”

"You ain't the only one who wuz gettin' a distress call, matchstick," Ben rumbles.  "Headed back to Earth, found out you wuz gone."

"I left you like twenty voicemail messages!" Johnny says, outraged.

Ben shrugs his giant rocky shoulders.  "Phone got eaten by a killer slug."

“Figures,” says Johnny, disgusted.

Peter coughs. "What about the rest of you? I thought this place was blocked off from your powers?"

America raises an eyebrow. "Yesterday, Billy Kaplan woke up.  All of the barriers around this dimension disappeared.  We decided it was worth investigating."

Johnny's eyes slide over to where Franklin is now playing, trying to help Leech get Alex's helmet onto his head.  Peter's eyes meet his as he turns back, apparently having had the same thought.

"We pulled the Fantastic signal out of storage and put it up over New York," Jen has a moloid under each arm and is grinning at Johnny.  She jerks her neck, uses her head to indicate the large contingent of superheroes congregating around them.  "Everyone and their cousin showed up to lend a hand. Even some, ah,  _surprises_."

Johnny doesn't have to look the way that she indicates to know that she means Doctor Doom, who is doing something disturbingly like smiling as Valeria shows something in her notebook to him and Reed.  Reed looks faintly nauseous, and Johnny is pretty sure that nightmarish visions of world domination are dancing in his head.

Or he could still be recovering from being a frog for three months, it's an either/or situation.

Johnny clears his throat, valiantly resisting the strong urge to sniffle.  "Thanks," he says, to Jen, but also to America and Rogue and Ben. "I, uh, ...”

Jen claps him on the shoulder with the force of about ten Captain Americas. Johnny's knees buckle, and only Peter's arm still strong around his waist keeps him from collapsing.  His whole shoulder feels numb and he suspects that he may have lost the use of his arm forever.  She just grins wickedly though. "No problem, brat.  Anything for the FF."

America rolls her eyes.  "Whatever, chico.  We're all heroes here. It's what we do."  She turns away, dismissive, and sticks her fingers in her mouth.  Peter tenses against his side in a way that Johnny knows means  _spider-sense_  and a shrill whistle pierces the general happy buzz.

"I'm heading out," she announces loudly.  "Earth's not going to defend itself, people."

With a mighty kick, she smashes a hole in the dimensional barrier.

Sue gives her a friendly wave. "I think we're going to take the ship back."

With a shrug, America jumps through.  Other heroes follow her, waving their goodbyes.  The whole Power Pack leaves and they take Onome with them so that she can head back to Earth and see her dad.

Ben leaves too. He claps a hand on Johnny’s shoulder after Reed and Sue have hugged him goodbye. “I got things to wrap up,” he says gruffly, jabbing a thumb towards the rest of the Guardians, who are waiting impatiently. “But I’m comin’ back after that. Don’t go giving my spot away to the bug.”

“No promises!” Johnny shouts after him.

The Molecule Man and Reed decide that they want to run some tests on the planetary core before they declare it stable, but everyone else opts to head back to the ship. Everyone is exhausted; Kor falls asleep on Tong’s back before they even make it back to the ship. Most of the kids drift off to bed, but Val and Franklin and a couple others hang out on the bridge, too wired or maybe too traumatized from the events of the day to want to sleep right away.

“You can take off your mask,” Val tells Peter matter-of-factly. “Everyone here knows your secret. It was well known on the Battleworld.”

“And that thought will haunt me for years to come, I’m sure,” Peter grumbles at her, but reluctantly does what she says, tugging the mask off and running his hand through his hair, matted down with sweat and blood.

Sue hooks an arm around his shoulder and smacks a kiss to his cheek, sweaty as it is. “We’ll help you keep it under wraps,” she promises.   “Thanks for looking out for my baby brother.”

Johnny smirks as a flush crawls up Peter’s neck. “Yeah, Pete, thanks for ‘looking out’ for me.” He bats his eyelashes.

Sue’s eyebrows climb up her forehead and her gaze drifts somewhere behind him, where he can hear Peter quickly turning away to answer a question from Franklin about something on the ship.

"So I guess it didn’t turn out too badly," and when he turns his face to glare she wiggles her eyebrows in a horrifically suggestive way.

"Don't," he says, giving her hand a squeeze.  "I know I talk a big talk, but you're my family.  Obviously, I wanted to be with you."

Sue grins, tired but real.  "Hold onto that thought while I tell you how many bugs I've seen Reed eat in the last three months. I’m not sure life as a frog would have suited you.”

"My palette is sensitive for these things, it’s true," Johnny grimaces.  "Did you know that at least three people every week stop and ask me what kind of bugs Spider-Man eats?”

Sue laughs. Johnny is unbelievably grateful to hear it. “And only two of them have been paid to do it by Ben,” she jokes. “I better check and make sure everyone made it to a bed before they collapsed.” She gives him another long hug.

Val is examining the remnants of her mouse critically. Johnny peers over her shoulder. “What was this device anyway?” he asks. “I never had time to find out.”

She pulls it out of the toy, careful to not disturb the wiring. “I retrofitted some of the tech you sent to make a modified fission device,” she tells him. “We tried a couple other ways but that was the only thing powerful enough to make it through the dimensional blocks that Franklin had set up.

“You gave me a bomb?” he yelps.

Val glances up at him, wrinkling her nose. “Only a little one.”

Peter finally catches him alone in a corner, leaning against a console.  His hand twitches, like he wants to reach out to Johnny, but it eventually stays by his side.

Instead they stand across from each other.  Johnny's pretty sure he's grinning kind of stupid.  He feels invincible.

"You look pretty happy,” Peter tells him, bumping his hip.

“I’d be happer if you hadn’t gotten this lump.” Johnny tries to scowl at him as he touches the place over his forehead where Peter’s mask had ripped when the cave collapsed on him but finds he can’t. Peter’s okay after all. And everyone else - he'd almost forgotten what an incredible feeling it is to be surrounded by these people. Sure it won’t last and by next week he’ll be ignoring Sue’s unsolicited advice and causing property damage because Ben won’t turn over the remote and howling about whoever left the pieces (Valeria) to their programmable auto-building nanoblocks (Valeria) all over the floor of the living room (Valeria). But, still. His amazing incredible  _fantastic_  family.

Peter laughs, real and happy, batting his hands away.  "Don’t touch it, it’s just about healed.” After a moment of hesitation, he catches Johnny’s hand in one of his, curling their fingers together.

Johnny looks around. "Actually, I think when I imagined this scene, there was more of a late nineties vibe to it.  I feel like there should be a dance scene to wrap it all up.” He’s acutely aware of the press of Peter’s gloved hand in his. His heart feels like it might beat through his chest.

“Don’t ruin the moment,” Peter says.

"I couldn't have done it without you," Johnny tells him, feeling magnanimously sincere for once.

Peter snorts.  "Don't I know it."

They fall into silence and Peter's grin fades gradually from his face, replaced by something a little more serious.  The warmth in his eyes doesn't change though, and it kindles something brave in Johnny’s stomach.

He steps closer. “I’m going to ruin the moment,” he says, apologetic. “I need to know – we’re going to try this, right? You and me?”

Peter looks down, strangely shy, and Johnny’s stomach clenches horribly for a moment.

Then, all of the space between them is gone and there’s nothing but Peter’s lips on his and his arms around him.

“I’ll do more than try, for you, Torch,” he promises, and then he’s leaning in again.

Artie and Leech are playing with the communications dashboard, trying to get the Franklin joins them, fiddling with dials and pushing options on the display, seemingly at random, before they can stop him, he hits a button on the communications display.

For a moment, nothing happens.  Then, a tinny sound emerges from under the console, from speakers that Johnny hadn’t even known were there.

"And now, we're going to play an old favorite from the Orion quadrant," says the DJ, as the opening horns of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’ start to filter through the speakers.  Val reaches over to turn the volume up, grinning.

Johnny pulls away from Peter’s mouth to whoop.  Peter groans.  "That's just not fair. No more. I demand that all future distress signals are conveyed by ABBA only."

"But you're still going to dance to it," Johnny points out, wriggling his hands around Peter's waist.

Peter adjusts their posture slightly, slipping his palm around to the small of Johnny's back.  "Torch," he starts saying, and his smile is so wide that Johnny has to kiss the corner of his mouth, just to catch a sliver of his happiness.  "I wouldn't dream of doing anything else."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Sci for the lovely art!!
> 
> Title is from Tove Lo. I have a lot of thoughts about Johnny Storm and Europop which did not make it into this fic.
> 
> I am [on tumblr!](http://hippolytas.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And thank you for reading!!!


End file.
